if my heart's a grenade
by makapedia
Summary: Yona's father tells her she can have anyone she wants - except for Soo-Won. To prove a point, she enlists the help of Hak, best friend and joth, and fake dating ensues.
1. as if the first cut wasn't deep enough

Hak knows he's in for an earful the moment he hears the first pebble hit his window.

He chews the idea of ignoring her in his brain for a moment. Long enough for Yona to find bigger rocks to throw, and for as much as he loves the idea of just saying fuck it and rolling over to go back to bed, because for as much as he adores her, she really is spoiled sometimes, he still knows she'll feel bad about unintentionally scratching the glass. He treads a fine line between teasing his sheltered best friend and tending carefully to her whims, and there's not much he can do about it, other than shaking his head and peeling back his curtains.

It's clear she's come from dinner with her father. She has her hair tied back with a bow, her wild mane of red temporarily tamed, and though there's a fire burning there in her eyes, she still looks _cute_ in her sweater and knee-length skirt. She still looks cute, even with _gravel _in her hands now.

"Gramps will kill me if you chip the glass," Hak calls, pushing the window open.

"Then let me in!"

Bossy. Well, Yona is who she is. For as much as he complains, he knows he'd still never want to change her.

His response takes too long for the little heiress's liking. Yona raises the hand full of gravel again, as if it's a threat. "Let down your hair, Rapunzel!"

She's got it twisted if she thinks he's the princess in this scenario. Still, Hak tosses the old rope ladder out of his window, and though she's still wearing her good heels from dinner, Yona drops her ammunition and scales his tower.

.

They're an odd pair.

It's not lost on him how funny she looks sitting in his bedroom. The juxtaposition between Yona, in a cashmere sweater and diamond earrings, and the stark black of the punk band posters on his wall is almost comical, even if it really _is _his normal now. She is just as much a common presence in his room as he is, really, and though she looks funny surrounded by all of the dark colors — and his humble collection of records — he wouldn't want it any other way.

She narrows her eyes at him as she sits daintily, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded neatly on her knee. "You have bedhead."

"I sleep sometimes."

"You should wash your eyeliner off first."

As if she has a right to lecture him on self care. Hak snorts. "Whatever you say, your highness."

Her nose wrinkles up at that. "Hak."

He drops beside her, sleepily curling around the general shape of her. He's careful, as always, not to push the envelope and break the touch barrier — never in his bed, anyway — and looks up at her, watching her pivot to face him, long hair curling around the crook of her shoulder, brushing just below her shoulder blades. Even in the lowlight of his mood lamp, her hair still looks soft, and there's so much of it; Hak narrowly resists the urge to reach up and run his fingers through it.

What a sappy thought. It's not like she'd let him do it anyway, even if she was sweet on him. Yona chases off frizz like it's her god-given duty. She's had a strict no-touching policy on her locks since she was twelve.

"So what's got you all upset, anyway," Hak asks, instead of dwelling on the way her hair looks as though it's glowing in the purple light.

Her eyes regain their spark without a moment's pause. "Ugh!"

Not entirely an answer, but Hak knows better than to prod too deeply. Instead, he cracks his neck and pokes her knee, brow quirked.

"I just don't understand his reasoning!" Yona says, cheeks puffed, and he hates how cute he thinks she looks when she's about to throw a fit. "And it's not like he has any good reason for me not to marry Soo-Won anyway! He can't just- he can't just tell me who I can and can't marry. I don't care what he thinks, Soo-Won is- he's the perfect gentleman, and beautiful, and-"

"Actually going to school for business," Hak supplies helpfully.

"Going to school for business!" Her hands are pressed down to her lap, now, and Yona unfolds her legs just as Hak has the mindfulness to look away from that particular siren song. "Wouldn't he want me to marry someone who could potentially take over the business someday? Or someone who could help me if I chose to?"

"Mmhmmm."

"He's the ideal son-in-law," Yona says, very primly. Hak rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, ignoring the slow, gradual stabbing in his gut. "And the perfect husband! What more could he ask for?"

It's an old song and dance, but Hak's still not entirely desensitized to the bump and grind. "Why're you in a rush to get married anyway?"

"I'm seventeen!"

"You're a baby."

"I'm in _LOVE,_" Yona gasps.

Tragically, unfortunately in love. Hak lets out a long breath and rubs at his chest, instead, where the stabbing feeling has migrated to. He knows instinctively that she has a point - Soo-Won is the ideal partner, what, with his pretty face and gentle words, and his dependability is second to none - but Yona is only seventeen, and on that basis alone, he can understand her father's hesitence.

Hak doesn't question her feelings towards Soo-Won. He only questions the timing. Ah, but Yona's always been impatient, and pushy, and bossy, and - well, he could go on, but that'd be rude of him.

"You're _seventeen,_" he deadpans.

She huffs and swats at his shoulder. She misses, somehow, and instead her palm slaps down on his bare bicep, and she leaves a burn of goosebumps in her wake. Hak only prays she doesn't notice.

"You'll understand when you fall in love, Hak," she says, foolishly. Hak bites back his laughter, because it'd only be self-deprecating at this point. "Life is too short to wait around for what's proper, isn't it? Or what someone else has decided what's proper for me. It's my life! Shouldn't I get to decide what's right or wrong for me?"

She's preaching to the choir. Hak sits up and rolls his neck. "Ideally."

"But he won't let me!"

"There are a lot of eyes on your father, you know," Hak says slowly. "Everyone's interested in the direction he'll take the business in, and a lot of that's probably going to fall onto your shoulders. And whoever you decide to eventually marry." Or something. "He probably just wants you to go to school first and get serious about it before you just decide to elope or something."

"But that's not his choice to make!"

Classic Yona. Pure emotional response. It's not that he doesn't agree with her, because he does - of course he does, it should always be her choice who she decides to allow the privilege of marrying her - but in the end, her father had spoiled her. Spoiled her sweet, of course, but spoiled her nonetheless.

Hak supposes this is the direct effect of giving her everything she'd ever wanted as a kid. It's not unlike a temper tantrum; Yona, denied her favorite toy, comes crying to Hak, expecting a different outcome. And, well, he's not sure what he's supposed to do about it, other than hear her out and offer what she probably hopes are words of encouragement. What else are friends for?

"It's not his choice to make," he echoes, placatingly. Stands up and crosses his room to open his dresser, as Yona huffs and puffs and probably pulls on her hair. "Give it some time. Maybe seeing Soo-Won around and watching him ace his classes will convince him otherwise."

"He said absolutely not, though," Yona sighs, and he can hear his mattress creak beneath her shifting weight. "He said on no terms could I ever marry Soo-Won."

That seems a little dramatic. The top drawer of his dresser groans as he tugs it open and pulls out a pair of old sweatpants.

"Huh." Hak grabs a (black) shirt and turns to face her.

"Father said I could have _anyone_ else." She's looking at him pleadingly now, and that knife in his chest twists, sinking directly into his heart. Yona barrels on, with eyes like burning sunsets and lashes long enough (and painted dark enough) to numb his tongue. "But I don't want anyone else! I only want him."

Yeah, doesn't he know it. Hak chucks the clothes at her instead of dwelling on his own selfish feelings. "That sounds dramatic."

"I don't understand! I could do so much worse than Soo-Won," she stresses, crushing his sweatpants in her hands. "I could…! I could date a delinquent, for all he cares, and apparently that'd be fine! A gold digger! A criminal! A… a _goth_!"

Does she realize whose room she's sitting in?

Hak snorts, raises a brow and leans back against his dresser, arms folded across his chest. At least this way there's distance between them, and if she inadvertently reams him with another knife through the chest, maybe he'll at least has a few more seconds to try and prepare himself for that sting. It's a delicate line he walks, the best friend but not the _one_. Second best. B team.

He'll get nowhere thinking like that. Yona's heart is huge, despite her rather laser-guided crush, and even if he's not her dream man, Hak still knows he means something to her. He's dependable in his own way, he thinks; otherwise, she wouldn't be here, leaning on him for comfort and advice. And that place that he takes up in her heart, one of comfort and utmost trust — well, that's special too, and it's more than Hak could ever ask for.

If she wants a big brother figure then that's the role he'll play. The shoe doesn't quite fit, but Hak's grown enough to deal with a pair of sneakers that hug a little too tight. Whatever. To ask for more would be greedy, and selfish, and above all, it'd be unthankful. He likes being allowed in her life, no matter the reason.

She trusts him. Even if she thinks being goth is worse than breaking the law.

"I guess so, huh," Hak says airily, "by that logic, even I could qualify."

"Yeah! You're the opposite of what he wants." Ow. "It's perfect."

There's a moment's pause. Long enough for Hak's brain to catch up with his mouth - and no. _Oh no._

It takes Yona about a minute longer to catch on to what he'd actually said. Her eyes lit up, and god, they're like Christmas lights, the way they glow, pretty and fluorescent. But before she has the chance to suggest anything dangerous, Hak interrupts her with a firm "**Hell** no."

"But _Hak!"_

"Not on your life," he says, in his best attempt to shut down whatever hairbrained scheme she's already shoddily plotted in the minute and a half since Hak had forgotten to think before he spoke. "Think about what you're asking."

"I am!" In her passion, she throws his clothes onto the floor and stands up, and her hair bounces around her cheeks. It's cute, and he hates that he notices it even as his stomach drops in dread. She has those puppy eyes now, looking at him through those long, dark lashes of hers, and he has to make an actual effort not to melt beneath her will. "Hak," she says, taking three steps toward him, "Please, wait, listen to me-"

He doesn't need to listen to know what she wants. Yona has never needed words to convey what she wants. Not with him, anyway. The pretty princess wears her big, woeful heart on her sleeve for all to see - and it's impossible for him to not be mindful of it at any given time.

"I'm not being your fake boyfriend."

"But!" She closes the distance left between them and snatches his hands out of their firm lock around his chest and into her own tiny pair. Her skin is soft, and he clears his throat and finds his grit, latches onto it, because he can't think like that, can't get lost in her wiles. "But Hak, there's no one else I can ask-"

_Ow._ Again. "You say the sweetest things sometimes," he says, looking anywhere but her.

"That's!" She seems to squirm for a moment. "You know I didn't mean it like that. Please, Hak. I don't _want_ to ask anyone else."

That almost hurts worse. If he tries hard enough, he can rearrange the words, can write his own siren's call in her summons - _I don't want anyone else but you _\- but he's too old now, and he's been playing this game too long to put what he _wants _to hear in her mouth. It's too dangerous for him to search for hidden meanings and what-ifs between her lines.

"It's a bad idea," he says, instead, shortly. "It won't work."

But she pushes on, still, in that stubborn, clueless way of hers. "We won't know until we try!"

_We._ Hak can't think in 'we's. He can only think in her, and what she wants, and how he can help her achieve those things without throwing himself in the fire in the process. And this - _this _isn't just walking through fire, which he would do, given the opportunity, really. _This_ is emotional suicide. Murder of his feelings of the highest degree. And the stubborn girl doesn't even know it, doesn't realize what she's actually asking of him.

It's easy to play pretend. He's far too good at playing pretend. What's difficult is pretending the double negative, or double positive, or whatever it is. He loves her. He can't pretend to love her when the feelings are already there. The truth will bleed through. He'll bleed through, in his stupid, stubborn possessive yearning for her, and then she'll hate him. Or he'll hate him. Or both.

"No," he says again.

Yona squeezes his hands in hers. It's a direct line to his heart. "Please?" she tries again. "For me?"

It might be her most damning blow yet. Never mind stabbing him in the chest - she might've as well reached into his ribcage herself and held his heart in her hands herself. She doesn't know, he reminds himself. She doesn't know the kind of power she has over him. Yona knows not what she does.

When he doesn't respond, she adds, "I trust you, Hak. I'll let you do anything you want."

Record scratch. Rewind.

"... Anything I want," he repeats.

"_Anything._"

He knows she doesn't mean that. Yona's talking about boundaries, about whether or not she'll be okay with him holding her hand, which. She doesn't mean that, either. He doubts she's had a risque thought about him in her life, and doesn't intend on allowing him to get away with copping a feel or kissing her, god forbid, but - but even then, they're definitely not on the same train of thought here anyway.

To have permission - express permission, at that - to do whatever he wants is tempting, to say the least. For devious reasons. Teasing reasons. How does one say… _gremlin _reasons.

He tries not to let his grin bleed through. He shouldn't. He knows he shouldn't, for his own sake, more than anything else, but the temptation is too strong. If he's going to crash and burn, he might as well take the chance to tease her in front of her rich friends before he finally croaks.

"Shake on it," he says. "I want that in writing."

If she's suspicious, her glee overwhelms her intuition, and she gasps and lunges forward to hug him. She's warm, and soft, and tiny, but Hak still can't help the shit eating grin that splits his expression as he allows himself to wrap his arms around her, too. If he's going to suffer for this, if he's going to actively throw himself into the fray and help Yona marry her sweetheart, well, at least he'll have permission to get on her nerves in the meantime. It's the least she could do, he thinks, to put up with his harmless jokes.

"You're the best," she sighs, and Hak catches a whiff of her shampoo as she drops back to smile up at him.

Flowery. Typical Yona. Still. It's so nostalgic that it does remind him that she still has his heart in her hands, whether she knows it or not.

"I mean it," he says. "I want it in writing. No take backs."

"Scouts honor!"

"You were never a girl scout." She pinks and smiles, guiltily, and she has no right being so cute. Hak huffs and rubs his face. "Pick those pajamas back up and get changed. Gramps should be asleep, so we're safe."

"It's not like I'm not allowed in the house, you know," Yona says, kneeling down to collect the discarded clothing. She hugs them to her chest and smiles still, still too overcome with gratitude for him to really school her expression into anything remotely _sisterly._

Well. He supposes that's the point now.

Fuck. What'd he just agree to?

Hak rubs his face harder. "That's the point. He'll be too happy to see you. I'll never hear the end of it."

Yona hums a little something and trots over to his bedroom door, bow bouncing in her mess of hair. Shoots a giddy look over her shoulder and sing-songs, "Whatever you say, _boyfriend._"

He can't help it. Hak trips on his way to his bed. Falls right on it, face down, and works on convincing himself that his heart hadn't just skipped a beat.

_(Fuck). _


	2. make me make bad decisions

To Yona's delight, Hak keeps his word.

He shows up at their meeting spot (an old treehouse they'd repurposed when she was twelve and he fifteen) looking terrifying, if she's being honest. He's always been a bit of a bigger guy, what, with his broad shoulders and lumbering height, but in combination with his smudged eyeliner and shredded sleeves and spiked combat boots, well. He's every father's worst dream.

It's perfect. He's perfect. Yona squeals in glee and hops down from her perch on the treehouse's deck without warning.

Hak yelps and lunges to catch her. "Wh- some _warning_, Jesus," he mutters.

"You look so bad!" He gives her a _look_, and - "Oh, that's perfect, too!"

"You say the sweetest things sometimes, Princess," he says, for what feels like the millionth time. And yeah. Maybe she deserves the dig. Yona's brain catches up with her mouth and she feels her face go hot. "Thanks."

"I meant bad in a good way!" It's clear her excuse isn't the balm she'd hoped it'd be. Hak looks at her, brow raised, and Yona pats a hand placatingly to his bare shoulder and tries hard not to cop a feel. He might be her fake boyfriend, but this pseudo relationship isn't real, and anything more than what's necessary feels a lot like cheating on Soo-Won, who, for as beautiful as he is, isn't built like a tank. And man, is Hak built like a tank.

"Bad was a compliment." It sure doesn't sound like a question.

"Yes! Not bad as in ugly," Yona says, patting his shoulder again, though she makes a mindful choice to touch parts of him covered by cotton and not warm, taut skin. "Bad as in dangerous. Bad boy material. Those spikes could kill someone."

"... They were thrifted."

Excitement bubbles in her stomach. "You _thrift?!_"

Hak sets her down and plops his hand on her head. "You are so filthy rich it makes you disconnected from the rest of the world sometimes, I swear."

She thinks that was a dig at her. Yona pouts and pushes his hand away. "Don't touch the hair! And I know thrifting is good. Fast fashion is terrible for the environment, you know. I don't partake in any of that. All of my clothing is purchased with the intention of using it for as long as I can, and I make sure to look into sustainable brands-"

He chuffs and gives her this crooked half-smile, and Yona doesn't know whether he's still making fun of her or not. He doesn't comment on anything that she thought he might, either. Instead, he plops his hand right back on her head and says, "I thought you said I could do anything."

"N-Not when frizz is in the equation, you bully!"

"So I can't romantically run my fingers through your hair?"

Laughable. "You wouldn't want to. Your fingers would get stuck." And hearing _romantically_ come from Hak's mouth is… weird. Unnatural. Yona's not sure she's ever even heard his voice say anything remotely sappy before. Most of what he spouts off is about music or sports - or making fun of her.

It must mean he's getting into character. Good. She can work with this.

"Whatever you say," he says. His hand slips from her hair, but doesn't quite make it back down to touch her. He hovers for a moment over her shoulder, indecisive, it seems, if he's permitted to touch her over the straps of her sundress.

Stupid Hak. Who makes a big deal about wanting to be allowed to touch her hair, only to shrink away from touching her anywhere else? She'd tried to wrestle him before, when they'd been kids, and he'd wrangled her into a headlock and demanded she tap out - and literally moments ago, he'd caught her in his arms after she'd lept from the treehouse. It's not like he's never touched her before. It's not like she hasn't made it clear that she trusts him.

Still. It's sweet, in its own funny way. Stupid Hak.

"Here," she says, taking his hand into hers. It's surprising, how big his hand actually is compared to hers. She feels dwarfed by him, but it's not suffocating, not really - it's safe, in a sort of nostalgic way. Yona can't remember the last time they'd held hands, but it must not've been for a while. Hak's hand feels bigger than she can ever remember it being.

Hak does a weird little fidget. "Ah."

"Couples hold hands," she reasons, cheeks hot, for some reason. They shouldn't be. Yona shakes her head and clears her mind - they're on a mission, after all! All of this has a purpose. "It'll help sell the idea to my father."

He nods, looking somewhere over her shoulder. "So holding your hand is okay, but touching your hair still isn't."

"Holding my hand has always been okay," Yona says, narrowing her eyes.

"Couples hold hands," he quips, far too quickly for her liking. "Got something you want to confess there, Princess?"

Yona swats his chest with her free hand. "Don't call me that!"

"If the shoe fits."

"You could always hold my hand before if you needed to for some reason," she says, through gritted teeth, face still tingling with heat. "But you have permission now to lace our fingers, if you think it'll be more believable now."

And to prove her point, she laces them. His hand feels even warmer in hers now, somehow, and she's relieved to find his hands aren't clammy or sweaty or… anything uncomfortable like that. He has callouses on his fingers, from trying to teach himself guitar, presumably, or maybe lacrosse, but - but that doesn't matter, really. What does is that his hands are comfortable enough to hold. It shuts him up for a minute.

But it doesn't take him long to find his voice. "What else are you cool with?"

Hm. "I said you could do anything."

Hak snorts. "Yeah. I don't believe that for a second."

"I don't… think I want you to kiss me," she says, after sitting and thinking on it. Not if she hasn't even kissed Soo-Won yet. There are some things that are sacred, she thinks, and kissing is one of those things that she wants to share with her happily ever after.

Hak nods. "Yeah, well. I figured that one."

"You can put an arm around me, if you want."

"Don't think that one's going to work unless we're sitting down, but noted."

He does have more than a foot's worth of height on her. In her defense, she's never had to sit and think about the logistics of pda with Hak before - and even if she had, she doubts she ever would've. Logistics are boring, and there's romance in spontaneity and making it work.

"... You can kiss my forehead," Yona says, perhaps too bravely. "And my cheek. And my hand."

Something unreadable passes over his expression. Yona doesn't have the time to really think on it; he blinks twice and it's gone, buried down in the murky, mysterious depths of his feelings, and she second guesses herself, briefly, before that crooked smile is back and he squeezes her hand. "If you're sure."

"And if you're sure," she finds herself squeaking. "This isn't just about what _I'm _comfortable with. You must have things you're not okay with too, right?"

"Stop jumping off of things and expecting me to catch you."

"Be serious!"

The look he gives her is deafening. "I _am _serious."

"_Hak._"

Even the way he rolls his eyes is exhausting. Yona props a hand on her hips and pouts, because he's such a _brat_ sometimes, and it's not cute at all. She wishes he'd give her a straight answer for once instead of dodging the question. It's infuriating, the way he offers her a taste of what she wants and then holds the rest overhead, playing keepaway. He's stubborn like that, she thinks, and it's always made her a little crazy. Just once, she wishes he'd be upfront with his feelings.

Yona narrows her eyes at him. Hak stares back at her blankly.

"... Whatever's fine with me," he says finally, expression unreadably static. "Don't worry about it. Whatever you're okay with will be fine."

God, she could throttle him. Typical Hak; such a needless martyr. Not for the first time, Yona wishes he'd just tell her what he wanted for once, instead of effectively becoming her (begrudging) yes man. It's not that she doesn't appreciate the concern for her happiness, because she does, of course she does, but there are times — times like this — that she finds herself worrying if his needs are being met, too.

It's kind of ironic. He's already doing a favor for her and getting relatively nothing in return. Who is she, to worry about his feelings?

Yona shakes her head. "That's not an answer, you know."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Stupid Hak. "You're not being cute at all, you know."

"I'm sorry," he says, leaning in, grinning like a demon. "I don't think I was hired to be cute, your highness. It was my understanding that you wanted your father to be scared of me, not think I'm cute."

"Hak!"

"Maybe we should look into revising our contract," he says, then raises a hand to flick the center of her forehead. "I can wash the eyeliner off."

"Don't you dare."

"I could put on some nicer shoes," he continues, still grinning, still leaning down far enough stand eye-level with her. "Maybe slick back my hair."

She can't imagine Hak in a world like that. It doesn't fit. He's Hak, in skinny jeans and sports jerseys and combat boots, so full of confusing contradictions and infuriating crooked grins, and the thought of him being anything but that feels sacrilegious. He's Hak, and he fits together with her, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense most of the time. But who else would ever agree to fake date her? Yona can't think of another person she'd rather ask.

Even if he's an absolute brat sometimes. Yona flicks his forehead right back. "I need those dirty thrifted boots or else I'm walking."

.

It's a little weird, she admits, leading Hak through the halls of her home like this. Which is stupid; Yona's held his hand plenty of times before, in much less theatrical settings. He's lead her through crowds, with his hand laced tight around her wrist, and she's tugged him over to roller coasters and carousels alike. Realistically, it should be second nature to her by now, a comfortable, casual tether between them.

But it's _weird_, dragging him to her father's office. Weird because she doesn't think she's ever actually invited him over to her home before, and certainly never for a mission like this, which feels… well, maybe not quite _weird,_ but definitely like an out of body experience.

It doesn't matter either way. She has a mission to accomplish, and if all goes well, she's sure Soo-Won would be okay with inviting Hak to the wedding, and sending him home with several nice bottles of wine. Or whiskey. Or… whatever it is he prefers to spend the night broodily sipping on. It's for a good cause, she tells herself, and Hak wouldn't have agreed to helping her out if he thought it would inconvenience him. If one thing's for sure, Hak isn't the kind of person to busy himself with bothersome things. In fact, it's far more likely to find him napping somewhere while avoiding his chores or homework.

"Nice place," Hak says, as she leads him down a hall lined with framed portraits of her. "Terrible feng shui though. This room has bad energy."

"Can it! A hallway isn't even a room anyway."

"It literally is."

"No, it's- a room has furniture! And purpose!"

Hak's legs become massive, muscular anchors, and he stares very pointedly at one of her baby pictures. "Princess. We're _inside_."

"Rooms don't have to be inside!"

He looks to her, instead, with eyes like a dead fish.

"A patio isn't inside. And neither is a greenhouse." This whole conversation is so off topic, but he has such a charming way of getting under her skin and making her want to throttle him sometimes.

(And by charming, she means he's a smartass and ought to have his mouth washed out with soap).

"... A greenhouse… _is_ inside…" Hak lets go of her hand only to place his hands on her cheeks and says, very slowly, "It has _walls._"

"No! It's outside! It has plants!"

His stare makes her want to punch him, right in the lip ring. "... Houses… have plants too, Princess."

"It has a glass roof!"

"Most places of business do," Hak says, far too quickly.

And yeah, okay. She can't really argue with that one. But still! "There's nothing wrong with my father framing pictures of me. I'm his daughter. His only daughter!"

That shit-eating grin is back. "Bad energy."

"_I'll show you __**bad energy**__, you little-!_"

Yona gets as far as reaching up to grab his shoulders and get one foot on his leg before the door shuts behind her. The darn thing resonates like a gunshot down the hall, and she nearly jumps a mile, jolting like a cat caught on the counter, and Hak only narrowly catches her before she can tumble backwards.

She has about half of a second to assess the situation. Her father, kind, clueless eyes and all, stares blankly at the spectacle before him. Hak's grip seems to unconsciously loosen around her waist. Yona realizes that her dearest, darling boytoy is cracking under the pressure, and she can't have that, can she?

Well, she did want to be an actress when she was like seven. Time to put that childhood dream to the test.

"Oh!" Yona gasps, squirming in Hak's arms. He stiffens for a moment, confused, presumably, as she slings an arm around his neck and nestles herself closer. "Sorry! I guess we got a little carried away.""

Her father's expression doesn't budge. "... Yona?"

"I didn't mean for the two of you to meet this way," she says, then, patting Hak's shoulder. "Sweetie, could you let me down?"

The corner of Hak's mouth twitch. "Sweetie," he mutters to her, amused.

They can iron out the kinks in the plan later. Discuss pet names and which ones won't make him crack like the child he is, apparently. He obeys, though, in typical Hak fashion; raises a brow at her but still bows to her will, allowing her to slip back to her feet safely, one hand still resting gingerly on her hip. She knows it's for her safety, and not at all an intentional addition to their ruse, but still, Yona thinks it really sells the story. What must be Hak's big brother instincts translate pretty cleanly into protective boyfriend, and for all her father knows, that's exactly what he is.

"_Sweetie,_" Yona repeats, all sugar, no spice. "This is my father. And father, this is Hak."

Her dad blinks once, twice. Nods slowly.

"... My boyfriend," Yona says, with a flourish. _Soak it in, _she thinks, almost vindictively. She hopes he takes it all in, Hak's piercings and smudged eyeliner and studded combat boots - Hak's massive, beefy arms, and the dark wash of his hair over his eyes - _all _of it.

Father looks at her, then. An entire conversation is exchanged between them, wordlessly. _You said I could have anyone else. _Hak is the definition of anyone else. Yona couldn't find someone less like clean-cut, sweet-eyed Soo-Won if she tried.

_Anyone_ else.

"... It's very nice to meet you," her father says finally, bowing his head politely. He even goes as far to offer a hand to Hak to shake.

Hak shakes with the hand not still glued to her hip. The way he holds her is almost possessive, in a way, and Yona finds herself leaning into his chest, one palm laid flat on his pec. She tries to play it off like this is commonplace between them, and not at all like this is the most intimate she's ever been with a man _period_, but heat rushes to her face anyway. And, well, that's probably fine, too, as long as Hak doesn't catch her blushing like a schoolgirl.

"Likewise."

Classic Hak. Mincing his words, especially when it comes to his elders. It's perfect.

"I trust you have Yona's best interest at heart," her father says, then, looking to her, smiling serenely. Something drums in her chest, anxious and uncertain. "I really hate to run, but-"

"Wait!" Yona squeaks.

He smiles apologetically. Stubbornly. "I have meetings I still need to attend to. I'm sorry, but my schedule is really full today-"

This can't be happening. She just paraded a bonafide goth in front of him! Yona draped herself all over him, right before his eyes! She'd never even gone as far as to hold Soo-Won's hand in his presence, and she can't understand why her father won't even bat an eye at her blatant display of teenage rebellion. Does she have to shove her tongue down Hak's throat to get a reaction out of him or something?!

Hak dutifully tucks his hands back into his pockets.

"Your schedule is too full for me?" she finds herself accusing. "Your schedule is too busy for your only daughter?!"

"Yona-"

"No, it's fine!" Yona grabs her fake date's arm and hugs it to her chest. Nuzzles up to him like she's a cat and he's her owner or something. "I'll just spend my time cozying up with Hak instead, since your time is too precious for your own flesh and blood-"

"_Yona_."

Her blood's running too hot for her to remember to feel guilty. For as long as she can actively, currently remember, her father's been ridiculously overprotective. She hadn't been allowed to even walk to the park by herself until she was thirteen, and even then, she still needs supervision, most of the time, if she wants to even go to the mall. Hell, her father's so anal about who he leaves his daughter alone with, he won't even let her marry the textbook definition of the perfect man - well, he was anal about it until about two minutes ago, when he walked in on Yona trying to climb a boy decked out in all black like a damn tree.

It doesn't make any sense. He's just being stubborn now! He can't really be okay with this, right? She'd thought he would've cracked by now. Really, she thought he would've cracked the moment Hak rested his hand on her waist.

A man has never touched her like that before. And certainly not in front of her CEO father.

"I'll really do it," she threatens. "I'll marry _this one_."

Hak shuffles beside her. Her father still doesn't budge. Stares at her, eyes just as gravely stern as they'd been when she'd begged and plead with him to allow her to marry Soo-Won.

"Once you're of age," her father starts, and Yona's blood absolutely _blazes_ in her veins. It's like a fire has been lit within her, and it threatens to burn through her fingers, sizzling through her curls, crackling embers in her gut. "We can talk about where you would like to go with this, but for now-"

"Forget it!" she snaps, and then she's turning, suddenly, and Hak's wrist is in her hand. Her feet can't move fast enough, and the framed photos blur around her as she storms out, red and deep wood and the pale blue of the walls, nothing more than streaks color fading behind her.

.

_Forget it._

He'll see how serious she can be. And it'll serve him right, too, for acting like her feelings are nothing more than a fleeting flight of fancy. Her feelings are her own, and that alone should warrant importance to him, of all people. The only family he has left, for goodness sake! How could he deny his own daughter her desires?

"Princess," Hak mutters, stumbling behind her. He drags his feet, and she hopes his old combat boots streak on the glossy hardwood floor. Hopes he leaves his mark everywhere he does, so that no matter where her father goes, he knows the hole he's dug himself into. "Hey, _Princess_."

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. No matter the age - seventeen, twenty-one, thirty, eighty.

"Princess, where are we going?"

"My room," Yona snaps, taking a sharp right, beelining down an adjacent hallway.

Hak sputters behind her. "Princess, I don't think-"

Like a woman possessed, Yona all but kicks her door in. Stuffed animals line her shelves. Pretty, adorned chests of jewelry sit comfortably atop her vanity. Bottles and potions of beauty, concealer and mascara alike, go clattering to the floor as she shoves her way past her pink chair and leaves Hak in her wake.

Her reflection is almost crazed.

If this is a battle of wills, Yona refuses to back down. Her father should know that by now. When it comes to something she's serious about, there's not a force in the world that could stop her, and this - telling her she could have anyone she wanted except for Soo-Won - was a challenge, whether he knew it or not. She can't afford to back down down, to bow to his will. If she does, what will that make her? A pretty little chess piece? The type of girl to allow someone else to decide her future for her?

Not on his life. Her resolution sets in her features, and her gaze hardens, staring deeply into the mirror before her.

Hak blurs in the background, a smudge of black, bleary among the pastels surrounding him.

Yona yanks her vanity drawer open and snatches the pair of scissors left there. Glances back to her reflection and decides she never really liked her hair anyway. She hadn't been the one to braid it meticulously, cooing over the unique shade. She hadn't been the one to tie ribbons in her hair and fluff the mass of curls, as if ceremoniously setting a crown atop her head.

No, that'd always been her father.

The scissors gleam in the light. Fuck it.

* * *

**i didn't point it out in some of my other fics because i thought it was obvious but i'm doing a back and forth pov thing with this one. so one chapter is hak's pov, the next is yona's, and then back to hak's. thanks for reading! **


	3. we're the thing that love destroys

It's been a long time since Hak has seen the nape of Yona's neck.

He tries not to allow himself to stare for too long. It's pretty, in the most tantalizingly vanilla way. The skin is pale there, scarcely seen by the light of day, and the shape thin and delicate, not unlike a swan's. He wonders if her skin is cold, now that her hair only hits just below her ears, and sort of wants to press a few fingers there, just to see if she's begun to pebble with gooseflesh.

It is surely duty, he thinks, that inspires these urges in him. He has a role to play, after all, even if there's no one around to put on an act for. Only Yoon, muttering, mildly scolding Yona as he himself dutifully evens out her haircut.

Yona is still cute with a bob, though. If it can be considered a bob. It's more like a pixie cut than anything else, hair curling around her earlobes, wavy and poofy and irritatingly adorable. More than that, still, there's so much of her neck on display that Hak has a hard time looking anywhere else than the new expanse of skin that's been revealed to him. She's pretty, even with a quarter of the hair she'd had before - she's pretty, even with skinny shoulders and pale skin and the most prominent collarbone he's ever seen.

Hak is so boned.

"You're so impulsive, Yona," Yoon huffs, still trimming away. Her father's surely not paying him enough to be Yona's hairdresser too, Hak thinks. "What were you thinking?"

She is statuesque. Prim and proper. It comes with years of practice, he thinks. She's had more strangers and professionals touch her hair, aim her face a certain way and dote on her than most girls her age, but that's just part of the territory. She is Yona, close friend and known drama queen, but first and foremost, she is Yona the heiress. Yona, who must upkeep appearances, for the sake of her father's business.

Yona, who just chopped off nearly all of her hair in a fit of righteous fury. And he'd stood by and let it happen.

"I never liked my hair very much anyway," Yona says, far too reasonably, for someone of her temperament. She's been oddly serene about the whole thing, and she's been this way since the first snip of her scissors. It's almost like she's shed away a dead layer of skin and emerged clean, rejuvenated.

Determined. Hak scrubs at his face and wonders just what he's gotten himself into here. There is a sense of duty, of course, when it comes to protecting her - one that goes beyond his, erm, feelings for her - but this seems… farther than he'd expected her to go. Yona is stubborn, yes, and an impulsive, but part of him never thought she'd actually go as far as to alter her physical appearance for the sake of her cause.

Shame on him for that. Really. She's a damn Aries.

Yoon shakes his head and continues trimming the back of her hair. "Your father is going to have a fit."

That seems to placate her even more. "Good," she says, smiling dangerously. The calm's begun to crack, and perhaps the adrenaline has begun to fade, because there are bits of the firecracker he knows and loves beginning to peek through the haze.

"I don't understand you."

"If he thinks he can control my life then he has another thing coming," Yona says. "It's my life. And it's my hair. I can dye it blonde, for all I want!"

Hak cannot picture it. He snorts from behind them and flops back down onto her bed, staring at the ceiling. At least this way he can think clearly, without getting lost in daydreams inspired by the pretty length of her neck, the line of her spine. "I don't know if Soo-Won is into blondes."

Yona doesn't even miss a beat. "He doesn't get to decide that for me either!"

_Good._ Hak smiles, despite himself.

"... But I do still want to impress him," she admits, only half of a moment later. It's almost guilty, the way she says it, and a lot bashful, and - thinking on it only makes his stomach tighten, so Hak presses one of her pillows to his face instead, as she carries on. "Is that bad? I still want Soo-Won to like the way I look, even if it's something I decide for myself."

Yoon answers before Hak has a chance. "That's normal."

"Is it? It kind of feels selfish."

Hak focuses on the sounds of Yoon's scissors, instead of digging too deeply into the morose way Yona sighs.

"Wanting him to be attracted to you is pretty normal," Yoon says, still snipping away. "But it's good that you don't want to compromise what you want to look like. Soo-Won should like you for you."

Thoughtful. And it shouldn't be too hard; Yona is pretty no matter the form, no matter the shape, no matter the length of her hair. Yona could ditch her daily makeup routine and show up at his door in sweats and an oversized shirt, and Hak still knows, instinctually, that he'd still think she was the prettiest girl he'd ever met. And it's sad, in a way, and a lot pathetic, but he chalks it up to the brightness of her eyes, and the general (cute) shape of her nose, and cheeks, and everything.

She's just _cute_, he thinks with a sigh. Too cute for her own good. She shouldn't worry about whether or not Soo-Won would like her with blonde hair. Hak can't see how anyone wouldn't.

"... Thanks, mom," Yona says, her smile evident in her tone. "You're the best."

Hak slides the pillow down far enough to catch the shift of light, catch the way Yoon moves to swat the side of her arm.

"I don't remember giving birth to you!" he chastises, then sets the scissors down. "There. It's about as good as it's going to get without a professional touch. Do you want me to contact your hairdresser and set up an appointment?"

Yona touches her cheek. Hak sits up enough to watch her do it. She observes her reflection for a long, dwindling moment, before her hand moves to scrunch her hair, cup it in her hand, really consider her predicament. It's not quite long enough to be a bob, and though not choppy as it'd been when she'd hacked at it, it's certainly not a pretty cut. Gone is her long mane of curls, and instead, she's left with a tousled, messy pixie cut, bright red locks curling around the shell of her ear.

It's cute. It's very cute. And very, very different than anything he's ever seen her sport.

"... No," she says, finally. "I think this is good. This is what I wanted. Thank you, Yoon."

"You're lucky I'm multitalented," he says, but still ruffles her hair in a way that's undeniably fond.

Yona smiles, then presses her hands over her ears. "I don't know what I would do without you cleaning up my messes."

"You'd be hopeless! The _both of you_ would be," Yoon says, turning, then, to deliver judgement upon Hak, now. From where he's draped on the bed, Hak raises a brow, as Yoon thunders on, hands on his slim hips. "I don't know what _you_ were thinking, Thunder Beast! Letting her chop off all of her hair like that - you know she's impulsive, and it's dangerous, to cut so close to the neck like that blindly! Especially in the back!"

Ah. It's his turn for mother's wrath. Hak cracks his neck and then bows his head dutifully. "This humble babysitter let his eyes wander for a moment. I beg for forgiveness."

"_Babysitter?!_" Yona snaps.

Yoon flicks his nose. "Don't antagonize her."

It is his god given right as a human being - and her fake boyfriend - to antagonize her. It is literally written in his contract.

"I just expect better from you. You usually have her best interests at heart," Yoon says, far too knowingly, and Hak decides to ignore the look he gives him in favor of watching Yona go pink with frustration. "You're usually her impulse control. I _trust you_ to be her impulse control."

"Instructions unclear."

Yoon flicks him again. "At least tell me you were the one who cut the back."

And touch her hair so carelessly? No sir. That is treason of the highest order. A crime against the crown. These hands are not worthy of such blessings. "She's bullheaded," Hak says instead. "I didn't dare get in the way of her horns."

It's not a lie. It's just not the answer Yoon wants, and not the answer Yona wants, either, judging by the way she pivots in her chair to sit on her knees, plant her hands on the back and try to reach over and grab him. Hak dodges her kitten claws easily and pushes her away (gently) with a single palm to her face.

Yoon shakes his head and collects his tools. "You two are exhausting."

"Sorry mother."

"_I didn't give birth to you, either!" _

.

A messy haircut is not enough of a makeover though. For Yona, every day is do or die, and if she's going to commit to an act, it's clear she's going to go all out.

Which is how Hak finds himself at their local thrift store, chaperoning his newly minted fake girlfriend as she sorts through racks of oversized, recycled band tees. He's sure she hasn't even heard of most of them, but still takes into great consideration the design and fit of each. At this rate, they _will _be in this store until closing, and they'll be lucky to come out of it with one outfit, max.

Hak wishes Yoon had tagged along. At least to streamline the occasion, if for nothing else. He's also sure Yoon would know more about fit and style, which are two areas Hak has zero expertise in.

"Do you think I could wear this like a dress?" she asks, spinning to face him. She's got some old Nirvana shirt held up to herself, and by the look of it, it's far closer to his size than hers. "I could get a pair of tights and rip them, and maybe some... boots…?"

He must not be giving her the validation she craves. Hak blinks. "... Isn't that a men's shirt?"

"Fashion isn't gendered, you big dweeb!" she huffs, then shoves the shirt back onto the rack. "Honestly, Hak, you're no help at all."

He is here to hold things and watch her swipe her daddy's credit card, not to provide fashion advice. Somehow he doubts she'd like anything he'd pick out for her anyway - even if she's trying to look the part, their tastes are still distinctively different. And it would feel weird, he thinks, to pick out clothes for her to wear. Weird, because he knows he'd gravitate towards things he'd want to see her in.

Like his clothes. Because he is a pervert, apparently.

"I don't know anything about fashion," he admits dryly.

Yona gives him a very obvious once over. "I know."

Ouch? "Ouch."

"But you have a theme," she says, pointing her finger at his chest, then his ripped jeans. "An aesthetic! I need to get on that level if I'm going to be convincing anyone that I'm a cherry bomb now."

Hak can't hide his cackle. "Is that what you are?"

"Hair." She points to her own head instead. "Hello."

Fair enough. Knowing better than to argue with royalty herself, Hak shifts his weight and throws her pile of clothes onto his other arm in order to fish his phone out of his butt pocket. She watches with a quirked eyebrow, still holding onto that Nirvana shirt, as Hak slides his finger and unlocks his phone.

"Who're you calling?" Yona scoots closer and peeks over his elbow.

Isn't it obvious? Hak's stranded at sea without a paddle. "Backup."

.

Not for the first time, Hak is reminded of what a godsend Ayame really is.

The door jingles as she pushes her way through, scanning over the tops of clothing racks until she spots him. There's an obvious moment when she realizes who he's here with - because he's not as subtle as he thinks he is, apparently - and then she gives him this knowing smile that makes his stomach drop.

It's not even an unkind smile. It's just that Hak doesn't like to be read like a damn book, and this - being caught shopping for clothes that are certainly more his taste than Yona's - must read differently than he'd intended it to. Or maybe Ayame just knows how to read between his lines. He supposes confiding in her that he had feelings for someone once has finally come back to bite him in the ass.

"Oh," Yona says, blinking. "Is that her? She's pretty…"

Hak hums nonchalantly and tries to play it cool as Ayame makes her way over to them. "She knows more about fashion than I do. I thought you might want another girl to shop with."

Yona looks to him. "... You were kind of looking at me like a dead fish for a while."

"I don't know what that means, Princess."

"_Princess_," Ayame says, glancing between them.

"Oh! Please, not you too," Yona says, nudging Hak out of the way, and he falls back into a conveniently placed seat without any resistance on his part. "I'm Yona," she says, offering a hand out to Ayame.

It seems the rest of the pieces fall into place for Ayame. She looks at him and only smiles wider. "Oh! Yona, of course," she says, then takes Yona's hand in hers and shakes. "I'm Ayame. Hak's told me so much about you!"

Kill him now. Maybe he could off himself with one of the hangers. "Hey."

"Only good things," Ayame promises, then turns and takes the pile of clothes from his hands. "Here, let me see. I'm sure we can make something happen with these, too, but-"

"There's a whole rack of shoes we haven't gone through yet!" Yona says, far too brightly.

"Do they have jewelry too?" Ayame places a hand on Yona's shoulder and begins ushering her towards the fitting rooms. There's a moment while sitting there watching them that Hak fears she'll say too much, that she'll spill his beans for him, but then she smiles so genuinely at Yona that he can't bring himself to regret calling her in. "I was thinking maybe a plaid skirt, too?"

It's fine. It's probably fine. Ayame means no harm. At worse, she'll say something about how fond he is of Yona, which isn't a lie - and it's not the whole truth either, but if she can leave it that, it will still be fine. Probably.

Hak rubs his eyes, slides back in the chair and begins playing solitaire on his phone instead of worrying about it. Whatever happens happens. This whole scheme is a terrible idea anyway, and even if it gives him situational heckling rights over his favorite redhead, Hak still knows it ultimately comes at a price. And if that price is the time limit, or Yona's disgust, should she discover his true feelings underneath his thin veneer of brotherly guard doghood, whatever - it's out of his hands now.

Besides. Things should be fine, as long as he keeps his feelings out of it. And if there's one thing Hak excels at, it's keeping his feelings out of things. Detachment is practically his middle name.

… Practically.

.

He doesn't know how long they're gone for. Hak knows better than to time Yona during her shopping excursions - beauty isn't born overnight, allegedly, even if he really thinks she'd be just as lovely in a potato sack as she is in high-end blouses and designer jeans.

But it's probably best if he's not left to dither with his thoughts.

As if on cue, Ayame taps him on the shoulder. "You're being summoned, Hak."

Ah, well. Boyfriend duties call. It's better than sitting and stewing on how cute his fake girlfriend is, after all, and how he's dug himself into a hole he's not sure he'll ever be able to pull himself out of. Hak decides to put his regularly scheduled self-loathing on hold and cracks his neck before he stands up. "Finally find something to appease little miss thing?"

"She's not that bad," Ayame tuts, swatting his bicep lightly. "Come on. She's in the fitting rooms now trying things on. I think you'll like this one."

"Doesn't matter what I think," Hak says automatically.

"I know," she says, leading him towards the back of the store and far away from where he'd been sitting before. "But I still want to see your reaction. You know, I always kind of thought you'd have a type-"

"That's your own mistake."

"-But she's _nice,_ Hak." Ayame continues, ignoring him. "A little sheltered, sure, but she's sweet. I like her. A lot of us were kind of expecting you'd bring home a riot girl or something, but she's like… well mannered."

He doesn't know whether he should laugh it off or take offense. Presently, it sort of feels like something's begun purring in his chest, deeply pleased, in a way he hadn't been expecting. It's not real, he reminds himself, not for the first time - what he's doing is pulling the sheet over his friends and family's eyes, not bringing her home to mom and dad, and Hak is so boned when all of this is over.

Still. It's not like he'd ever needed Ayame's approval. Though it is nice, in a weird sort of way. "So she's been on her best behavior, then," Hak says, taking it in stride.

"She's _nice,_" Ayame says, insistently. "Just kind of clueless."

Yeah, that's Yona. Spoiled sweet. "Bossy, too," he says, grinning crookedly.

She eyes him suspiciously. Presses her lips together in what appears to be an amused smirk and says, "Well, I guess she doesn't subvert all of my expectations after all."

A lesser man might react to such blatant teasing. Hak glues his mouth shut and stares back at her instead, silently daring his expression to give anything else away. There are things to be said, surely, about his preferences, and what it is about Yona that draws him to her like a moth to a flame - and he likes to think he does a bang-up job of _not_ letting the whole world know he's positively whipped.

"Um," Yona says, from behind the curtain, like the damn angel in disguise she is, and the moment is broken. "I think I might need a belt for this, Ayame, I don't know…"

The rungs of the curtain shriek as she pulls them aside, and Hak hopes to god his expression remains professionally neutral.

He's not sure he's ever seen the heiress in quite so much black in his life. Yona, though not afraid of it, tends to favor a wider spectrum of colors. She looks lovely in shades of white and pink, in blues and purples, in pastels and jewel tones alike, with that long hair of hers tied back in several kinds of bows and ribbons. For as long as he can remember, she'd been safely pretty, definitely cute, in knee-length skirts and smart, dry-cleaned sweaters, in pearls and neutral-toned eyeshadow, and Hak had always chalked her beauty up to a matter of opposites attracting.

But she's decked out in black now, hair chopped below her ears, and she's not even wearing pants, for fuck's sake. Yona tugs on the hem of that oversized band tee and scoots further out of the dressing room to get a better look at herself in the floor-length mirror.

"Oh," she says, shifting her weight, "nevermind, maybe it's not so bad-"

Hak tries very hard not to gawk at her thighs. Has he ever seen her thighs before? They'd never gone swimming before. He'd always just sort of thought her legs were twiggy and carried the rest of her like duty and left it at that, but - but they're long, and weirdly mesmerizing, even hugged in black thigh-high socks. They're especially distracting while they're being supported by chunky heeled combat boots.

He swallows. Tries very hard from keeping his mouth hanging open. "Your father would have a fit," he tries, but his voice sounds tight and not at all like himself.

Ayame shoots him a smile and claps her hands together. "I could get you a belt if you want! It'd give you more of a waistline, but I think the baggy look sort of works for you. It's very Ariana."

Yona tugs on the hem of the shirt one more time and then raises her hands to mess up her hair instead. "Do I look like a mosh?"

If she raises her arms just an inch more, Hak is sure he'd be privy to a panty shot, and feels sort of faint for even getting a little bit excited about it. To save face, he jabs his hands into his pocket and says nothing at all.

"Yes?" Yona asks, looking over her shoulder at him. With her hair this short, he can see her mother's earrings more clearly than ever, dusting over the slender rise of her shoulders. "No?"

Big brother. Fake boyfriend. Guard dog. Hak grapples with the trainwreck that is his attraction to her and hopes that one of his titles will stick and remind him of who he is. "... We'd have to get you some bike shorts."

"Why let my father sleep easy at night?"

It isn't her father who'll be up late thinking about it. Hak squirms and slouches harder. Perhaps the princess is too comfortable around him after all. "It's not him I'm worried about."

She presses her lips together. "If anyone tries something you'll be there to beat them up anyway," Yona says, like the infuriating, trusting darling that she is. "Besides. I don't have the sex appeal anyway, remember?"

Harsh. Making him eat his words. "Some people are into manic pixie dream girls."

Ayame swats at him. "You look perfect, Yona. I like it. You should make Hak lend you his black nail polish and it'll be a whole look. And one of his denim jackets, too. With the patches."

The purring in his chest threatens to overtake him completely. His heart just might stop. God, who is he, getting this excited in a damn thrift store? So much for detachment being his middle name. It's Yona he's ogling - untouchable, out of his league _Yona_ \- and his self-loathing returns for its second wind.

Whatever, he tells himself. Whatever. If she thinks it'll piss her father off, so be it. It's not like he can't resist her charm - he's been doing it for longer than he cares to remember, really, and it's not like he's an animal or something. Even if she's the hottest girl in the world (which, uh, _she is,_ apparently) it doesn't mean he won't be able to keep his feelings out of it. And it doesn't mean he won't be able to keep his hands off of her, either.

She's just hot, okay. And he's not disgusting.

She's just… hot.

Hak sort of feels like a dog on a summer day. Really, he kind of wants to stick his head out of a window and pant or something.

"Oh! Boyfriend's jacket!" Yona says, far too brightly, and claps her hands together, too. "Pleaaase, Hak? For me?"

How in the world is he supposed to say no to that?

"Fine," he says, ears burning, unable to come up with a sassy retort under such dire conditions. He tries not to think about the way Ayame's smiling at him now but fails and fears his neck is pink now, too.


	4. boy trouble, we've got double

"Hak," Yona asks, setting down her makeup sponge, "do we have the same type?"

His bed creaks behind her as he shifts. "What."

Turning in her seat, she can't seem to keep herself from pushing the subject, even if it really is none of her business. "I mean. Ayame's so pretty."

Hak's laying in such a way that his head hangs off of the mattress upside down. He raises a brow at her but doesn't respond right away, instead electing to look at her and make her feel stupid for even going there.

Stupid. He's the stupid one. Yona huffs and turns back to face his mirror instead, busying herself with finishing her makeup. Contour next, then she should probably skip the blush, if she wants to look rough and tough, hm. "She's _pretty,_" she says, insistently. "And she's blonde! And she has blueish eyes, like-"

Hak grunts and Yona hears his booted foot hit the wall. Stretching his legs? "Don't make it weird."

"You have good taste," she says anyways, smiling. If she's not careful, her contour might be uneven, because she can't seem to keep an even expression when she's talking to him lately. "And she's so nice! And she doesn't take your shit!"

"If I wanted to date my mom I'd be hitting on Yoon already," Hak says sleepily. "Ayame and I aren't like that."

"But if you _were._"

"Stop making it weird, Princess."

Yona huffs and moves on to her eyebrows instead. Holds her face steady with one hand and draws the pencil in short strokes across her brow bone.

Fine. If he doesn't want to talk about his feelings then he doesn't have to. No matter how frustrating it is - he's already doing her such a huge favor that it feels needlessly pushy, to pry into his private life.

But still. She can't help the burning curiosity, curling in her gut like liquid fire. It ignites something unignorable in her veins, frantic and frustrating, and she has to assume it's glee for him, that he's managed to find companionship - or at the very least, mutual fondness - with such a nice girl. Sometimes Yona worries about him, the big lug. He never goes out! And when he does, it's to dark, shady venues to mosh or… whatever it is Hak does when he embraces his inner vampire and disappears into the night.

And it's not that she wants to change him. If Hak likes loud music and feeling like the bassline might stop his heart, cool, good for him. Those are parts of him that make up the whole - what she _does_ want is for Hak to be able to function normally in society. And also not be alone.

Which. Oh. Yona lowers her eyebrow pencil and looks back to him again. "I'm not getting in the way of anything, am I?"

Hak snorts. "If you were I wouldn't be helping you."

"Because if I am, we can call this off," she says, shifting more fully now, in order to face him. "I mean it! She seemed really cool with helping me out yesterday, but if it's too weird, or if it's putting a strain on your relationship-"

Her stand-in boyfriend grunts and rolls onto his stomach. Blankets his arms in front of himself and plops his chin there, right on his forearm, and stares back at her. "Ayame is not my girlfriend."

That's not what she's asking. "Soo-Won isn't my boyfriend, technically."

"I'm not planning on marrying anyone anytime soon," Hak deadpans. "I'm not impulsive."

"I'm not impulsive!" Yona huffs, pointing her pencil at him threateningly. "It's love! Oh, you must not be into her, nevermind - if you were you'd understand! Love just… it makes you crazy sometimes," she finishes, nodding sagely.

Hak stares at her. Raises an eyebrow again.

God, she ought to shake that look off of his face. Mr. Know it all. What does he know about love anyway? Out of the two of them she's the expert on this topic, and that's not something that happens very often. It sort of inflates her head. Makes her smug enough to lean over and flick his nose.

"Crazy in a good way," Yona says serenely. Crazy in a heart racing, blood pumping sort of way. It's not something she's sure she can explain to someone who's probably never had a crush in his life. "I just… want to spend as much time with him as I can. And the rest of my life is the most I can offer."

There's a lopsided smile now, curling at his lips. "What, you don't think Soo-Won just wants your body?"

"He gets body _and_ soul!" Yona blurts, blushing, swatting at him now. "He gets everything, you punk-"

"More goth, but okay."

"Snot nosed brat," she says, sticking her tongue. "The least cute person I know."

"Now now." He's smiling far more crookedly now. "You and I both know you own a mirror, Princess."

How any one human can be so good at pushing her buttons is beyond her. It's like she's a damn television remote and he's a lazy couch potato, she thinks, standing at once, fully intending to march over there and pile drive him. Whether or not she'll hurt herself on the surprising layer of muscle hidden beneath his worn black t-shirt isn't even a thought in her head - for Yona, there is only righteous fury, and his heart looks particularly ruffleable. If he thinks he can play with fire without getting burned, well, he has another thing coming, and this new version of Yona wears combat boots now. All the better for kicking with.

He has enough time to brace himself, though. Hak catches her as she plummets her dead weight onto him and wrestles her into a pretzel in about five seconds flat, and moony-eyed goth or not, Hak is still a jock, physically.

"Ooof, hey-!"

"What was the goal, Princess," Hak asks, chortling.

She squirms and tries to knee him in the side. Instead, her leg manages to get hooked around his hip. There's a moment where he falters and Yona takes the chance and runs with it.

Hak grunts. Yona manages to get on top of him and press her knees on either side of his hips. Panics, realizes that his arms are stronger than hers, and just sort of… plants her palms on his chest. Presses down, as if her kitten strength will be enough to stop him.

It's surprisingly not enough to encourage an immediate retaliation. Hak lets out a breath and blinks up at her, and it's _almost _cute, how wide his eyes are. The dumbstruck expression is a nice change. It's refreshing, to wipe that smug grin off his face every now and again. Maybe she should work harder to keep Hak on his toes.

He gapes at her for another moment. His chest rises and falls with his breath, and the worn cotton of his shirt is a flimsy layer between her hands and the heat of his skin.

Her wrists wobble as she leans forward, resting her weight on her hands. "Who's the boss now, huh?"

His adam's apple bobs as he swallows. It's weirdly distracting.

"... You, your highness," Hak says, without a hint of irony.

It makes her cheeks burn. Indignant, she huffs and shakes her head - now he's the one who's making things weird! Here she'd been, just trying to have a friendly conversation with her good friend come stand-in boyfriend Hak, and he has to go and look at her as if she'd stripped him naked or something. God. It's like the guy has never been conquered before, like he's never had anyone challenge him, just because of his towering height and admittedly fantastic build.

What's so weird about talking about their mutual crushes anyway? Isn't that what friends do? Have years of chick flicks lied to her?

"I don't know why you keep calling me that." Yona pouts. "It's not my name. And I'm not that bossy."

"With all due respect," Hak starts, "you _are_ sitting on me."

"You started it!"

"Did I."

"You're not wording that like a question. Why aren't you wording it like a question?"

Hak raises an eyebrow at her but doesn't say anything. Doesn't move, either. For all of his surprise, it seems he doesn't actually have a problem with her sitting on him like this - and Yona thinks perhaps it'd been just the shock of someone actually having the guts to shove him over that had him momentarily tongue tied. There's not another reason she can think of that could possibly shut him up like that. God knows she's been trying for years to get him to cut the teasing.

"Whoaaaa," comes a voice from behind, and though Hak jolts beneath her, Yona takes the adult approach and instead looks over her shoulder before she reacts.

Sure enough, Hak's kid brother Tae-Yeon stands in the doorway, adorable baby-blue baseball hat turned backwards, Pokeball in hand. "Are you guys wrestling?"

Nothing to worry about. "Your big brother tapped out," Yona says, gleefully.

"You cut your hair!" Tae-Yeon gasps, dropping the Pokeball at his side. He scampers over and pats her knee in awe, and Yona swings herself off of Hak's lap before their grandfather has a chance to come in and catch her straddling his oldest grandson, too. "Whoaaaaa!"

He's probably the cutest kid in the entire world. Yona cannot begin to fathom how the two of them are related, even if it's via adoption; they'd been raised by the same wonderful old man, and somehow Hak had turned into a complete gremlin and Tae-Yeon a little angel.

The duality of man, she supposes. For every Hak of the world, there must surely be a Tae-Yeon. Or a Soo-won.

"And new clothes!" He pokes a finger at her fishnet tights. "Issat Hak's shirt?"

"You know your big brother's shirts?"

Tae-Yeon shrugs a little and hops up to sit beside her on the mattress. "Kinda," he says, kicking his feet in the air. "I like wearing them for pajamas a lot. But I can tell because it's really big on you! You're not going to sleep yet, are you?"

"It's too big on you, too," Hak says, turning his hat back around.

"But Yona's a grown up like you," he says, pouting.

_See,_ she thinks, far too smugly. She even shoots Hak a satisfied grin and he shakes his head at her.

"Speaking of pajamas." Hak hefts his little brother into the air and sets him on his shoulders. "Isn't it about time you start washing up for bed, little man?"

"But Yona's here!"

She swears her heart grows three sizes. "But I'm hereeee," she finds herself whining too, reaching out.

Hak shoves her face away with ease, a single palm to her forehead and a light shove. She tumbles back onto the mattress as Hak stands, baby brother giggling as he's suddenly raised several feet into the air. From where he sits on Hak's shoulders, Tae-Yeon can easily reach the ceiling, and proves so with a victorious slap as his big brother crooks that cute half-smile and begins carrying him out into the hall.

And, okay, fine, Yona thinks, leaning back onto her hands and watching the two of them chatter and giggle like kids - maybe Hak is cute, in his own sort of sarcastic, annoying way. Or he's cute when he's with kids, at least - and especially his own kid brother.

Or maybe Tae-Yeon's shouldering all of the cute in the family, and Hak seems cuter just by proximity. Yeah. That's probably it.

.

It's not a limo, but there's a certain charm to Hak's old car; and for the job at hand, an old 90's… _something_ vehicle certainly fits the bill. Besides, who cares if there are crank windows and the AC doesn't quite work the way it's supposed to - in all reality, Yona's just more impressed that her newly minted fake boytoy knows how to drive a stick shift than anything else.

Hak raises a brow at her when she expresses such awe. "It's a car."

"But!" Yona plops back in her seat and tucks her legs beneath her, hands pressed to her knees. There's something classy about driving a stick that she can't really put into words. And… well, she's not sure if classy is what she's looking for here in this transaction of a relationship they have currently, but still - it's _charming, _and it's _fun,_ and it's a fact she hasn't fully been able to appreciate until this very moment.

The wheels whiz as Hak takes a right turn and pulls them onto the highway. "But?"

"But it's cool," she says, finally, begrudgingly.

His resulting smile makes her stomach burn. "Cool."

"Don't let it go to your head!" But she's smiling, too, and even if he's a gremlin sometimes, his satisfaction is infectious. Hak isn't one to showboat. Hak's not even one to brag about the little things - he's much more lowkey than she is about most things, really - but there's something deeply rewarding about making Hak feel good about himself.

Within reason. She really can't let him get to his head. If she's not careful, he'll get too used to her complimenting him, and then he'll just expect it from her. And the last thing Yona needs is to give Hak reason to tease her.

"Soo-Won doesn't know how to drive a stick," Yona continues.

Hak exhales through his nose, eyes still on the road. Hands on the wheel. "He doesn't need to know how to," he says, streetlights washing beams of yellowed-light over him as they speed down the empty highway. "He has drivers for that."

"I don't know how to drive a stick either."

"You don't know how to _drive_ at all." He's not wrong, but Yona still sticks her tongue out at him and leans over to flick his shoulder. "And you'll probably never need to learn how."

"I still think it'd be a worthwhile skill to have," she says, pouting.

Hak grunts noncommittally.

Ugh. There he goes again. Yona simmers or a moment, pressing her back against the cool, worn leather of the passenger seat. "I'm sick of everyone babying me all of the time," she says, and there's something righteous burning in her gut now, stifled and angry. "You don't know what it's like, being told what to do and say all of the time - it's exhausting, you know! It's hardly living like a person at all. I'm just- It's like being a doll."

"Princess."

"And _that!_" She claps her hands back onto her knees. "Calling me that all of the time! It's like nobody sees me as a real person, they just see me as my father's daughter, or, or - like the next potential head of the company!"

Hak says nothing. His lips press together and he glances at her, taking his eyes off of the road for only a moment.

She could melt there. As if Hak had ever meant to put her in this box. As if he wasn't just following the status quo. "I want to be able to make my own choices," she admits, heat breaking in her stomach, fraying, spreading through her bloodstream. "And I want to be able to take care of myself. And do things."

"Like drive."

"Like drive." Yona nods to herself, even though Hak's got his eyes back on the road now.

It's silent, then. A good fifteen minutes of the trip is spent in silence, and the only noise is the staticy hum of his radio, questionable reception, broken antenna. Somewhere beneath the audio fuzz, Yona thinks she hears guitars racing toward a crescendo, and then that heat breaks fully in her, shattering like a balloon.

"If this is going to work," she starts, "you're going to have to stop handling me with kid gloves."

Hak doesn't say anything.

"I mean it." She is Yona, seventeen going on eighteen, princess going on queen. What good is adulthood if she's never allowed to embrace it? If the rest of her life is meant to be spent grasping at the coattails of the men in her life, well, then she doesn't want it.

The rumbling of the engine beneath them simmers to a quiet lull. Hak puts the vehicle into park and then turns to face her, old leather groaning beneath him as he sets a hand on the headrest of her seat. "Is that what this whole thing is about?"

Yona doesn't blink. "What?"

"Are you trying to get married because you want to feel independent?"

Those puzzle pieces don't quite match up in her heart. Trying to force those two together feels like shoving two magnets together - the same ends of two magnets. No attraction. No cohesion.

"I love Soo-Won," Yona says, very surely, staring Hak head on. She _does_, and it doesn't matter if he's prince charming, because being with him will still free her, surely, from this in-between she feels so lost in, this adolescent purgatory. "I've always wanted to marry him. Growing up hasn't changed that."

Hak's resulting slow nod makes her blood itch. He pulls the key from the ignition and then cracks his neck. "As long as you're sure," he says, then reaches over to ruffle her hair. "Yona."

It's the first time he's called her by name in a long time. That itching in her blood becomes a full-blown storm, and she is Yona, soon to be crowned queen. She is Yona, and this boy before her with the moonlight eyes and dark, dark eyeliner takes nothing with him - he only crooks a half-smile at her, turns, and kicks the driver side door open.

.

"Earplugs," Hak says, holding an open palm out to her.

Even from outside the venue, Yona can already hear the screaming of electric guitars and feel the rumbling of the bassline in her very bones.

But that would be chickening out. Who would she be, if she went and babied herself, even after that spiel she'd given him in the car just now? Yona shakes her head and presses his hand shut. "No thanks. I'm a bad bitch now."

It catches him off guard. Certainly startles a laugh out of him. "If you say so."

But Hak still pockets the earplugs anyway. Whatever. She'll show him. One way or another, she'll get her guard dog to believe her. Part of her thinks that'd been the problem, why her father hadn't reacted the way she thought he should've - it's one thing, to think his daughter is simply settling for a bad boy. It's another thing altogether to think his daughter is right there with him, knee-deep in anarchy and loud, wailing guitars.

She has something to prove, now. Yona hardens her resolve and rubs her eyes.

"You're smudging your eyeliner," Hak says.

"Exactly."

He cracks that half smile again and ruffles her hair. It's more brotherly than romantic, and though it's comfortable, and strokes something nostalgic and safe in her chest, it's not what she needs right now. If this is going to work, if this whole fake relationship is going to mean something, Yona needs to up the ante.

So she grabs his arm and throws it around her shoulders. Slips her hand around his waist and rests it on his hip.

There's a pause in him. Yona takes the initiative again and hooks her finger in his belt loop.

"You can touch me," she mutters into his ribs. Presses her face against the side of his chest and nestles herself there, in the crook of his arm, and it's comfortable here, too, in a completely different way. Maybe it's just Hak and who he is that brings her comfort, no matter the position, no matter who is holding who, no matter how close they are - but it's different than before. It's new, and it's weirdly intimate.

But Hak settles into the role she's assigned him. Faithful, loyal Hak cups her shoulder and tugs her against him, and the two of them make their way in, welcomed by screaming guitars and the steady thumping of the drums. And this is the cadence of her heart now, she thinks, even as her ears ring - for the time being, this is who she is. And she might as well embrace it.

_Is this okay,_ she wonders, but the thought is nearly drowned out by the rumbling of the bassline. It rumbles all the way through her chest, a brand new heartbeat, and it feels alien and distant.

It's hard to walk in this position, though. It could be easier, perhaps, if she was a foot taller, or if Hak was a foot shorter, but their height difference makes these things difficult, and instead of holding her around the shoulders, Hak decides to lead her through the crowd with a steady hand on her back. He has one hand hooked over her left shoulder and the other spread across her upper back, and there's a nagging, curious part of her that wishes he'd slip his hand down and rest that hand on her lower back, instead.

That's what boyfriends do, isn't it? And she'd given him permission. It's not like they'd be tongue kissing or anything - even if it sort of brings heat to her face, the longer she sits and thinks on it - they just have a point to prove.

"Do you want something to drink?"

"YES," Yona shouts.

She can feel his laughter through his touch. "Okay," he mutters, leaning down, so close to her ear that she can feel his breath in her hair.

The heat in her face refuses to quit. Stupid. How old is she, thirteen? This is just Hak. Hak, who's doing his best to both keep tabs on her in a crowd and also play the role she's appointed him.

"Water?" he asks, and he's close to her so that he doesn't have to shout too, she realizes.

Still, it's closer than he's been to her face in… well, _ever_, she thinks, and Yona pivots toward him, bravely, stubbornly. She won't turn away in the face of danger. No, she'll face the fire head on, will embrace this new life she leads, will prove herself unafraid. She is Yona, riot girl, bad bitch, or… whatever it is her father's most afraid of - she's Yona, adult, and intimacy doesn't frighten her. Nothing scares her anymore.

_For Soo-Won,_ she thinks, standing on her toes.

"Thanks," she mumbles, taking his jaw into her hands and pulling him down toward her, and his cheek is warm beneath her lips. His _skin_ is warm, and his jaw a little stubbly, but she finds the scruff isn't as uncomfortable as she always thought it might be.

His expression doesn't change. Hak swallows, and if Yona lets her hands slide down his throat on the way back down, well, then they're both just victims of circumstance.


	5. i'm two quarters and a heart down

If he had a tail, Hak's sure it would be wagging.

Stupid. Hak the guard dog fetches his master a glass of water and tries schooling his expression into something less pleased. The smile is as thrilled as he is, and Hak thinks the look on his face must be a little frightening, judging by the bartender's reaction. He takes a few quick breaths, in and out, and reminds himself of who he is and where he stands - and reminds himself, too, of why Yona had even kissed him at all.

If he can call it a kiss. She'd kissed his cheek. Simple and sweet. Chaste. Really, the sort of smooch mothers give their babies, the sort that children give each other when they're forced to say goodbye to one another. Is he really so pathetic that even a fleeting peck on the face is enough to make his tail wag?

Apparently. Hak tries scowling instead. Finds that works better than trying to keep his expression neutral, and turns to deliver her highness her refreshments.

She's hard to pick out in a crowd. Even with her new hairstyle and clothes, even with all of the eyeliner she'd caked onto her face, _even _with the brightness of her hair - well, she blends in here. Even if Yona's fiery mane is natural, stark red hair is sort of trendy for this scene, and it's not like his little fake girlfriend is, well, tall. She's tiny. Barely reaches his shoulders.

Crap. Hak beelines for where he'd left her, hoping, miraculously, that his curious, stubborn heiress hadn't decided to go adventuring on her own. Even as he's pushing his way through the crowd, he knows such a wish is a pipe dream. With the way she'd been sizing up the front doors before they'd even walked in, or that look she'd had in her eye when she'd allowed her hand to trail down the front of his shirt after she'd planted a kiss on him - well, it's clear Yona's out for blood tonight.

For _whose_ blood is yet to be discovered. Perhaps Hak shouldn't be the one doing the hunting.

Ah, well. Her safety is more important than a little bloodshed. What's the worst she can do to him anyway? Kiss him? He'd already weighed the pros and cons of this whole act anyway when he'd accepted this role. It's not like Hak doesn't already know he's stranded upstream without a paddle; he's fucked, he will always be fucked and will continue to be fucked long after this facade has ended.

But it's whatever. If it makes her happy, was it really all that bad? Hak doesn't tug on his leash. He trots far too faithfully after his master, drink in hand. Besides, it isn't like he doesn't already know how this ends. He's not foolish enough to believe, even for a moment, that this will end in happily ever after for the two of them.

He finds his master without much effort. Yona _is_ out for blood tonight, and proves so by fighting her way onto a table, of all things. That's fine. What's less fine is the gaggle of men who've begun surrounding their newest manic pixie dream girl like moths to a flame.

Bottom feeders. Hak elbows his way through the crowd. "Princess."

The music is loud and Yona must pretend not to hear him over it. She continues jumping, or dancing, or… whatever it is she's trying to do. Moshing? By herself? On a table?

"What are you doing," he deadpans.

"Is that for me?" she asks, a bit louder than she probably needs to.

Still, she takes the glass from him and takes a long sip of water, and the crowd around her shuffles closer. Hak has half a mind to throw elbows and knock some teeth out but resists, barely, instead electing to hold a hand out to her and hopefully convince her to relocate.

No such luck. She hands the glass back to him and continues her thrashing.

Typical Yona. Stubborn and impulsive. Hak sighs and shoves the empty glass at some guy on her left, who's no doubtedly trying to sneak a peek beneath the oversized shirt she's wearing as a dress. "Yona."

She stumbles. Hak reaches to steady her, and manages to do so before any of her newly acquired fanclub can try the same - he makes contact with her knee and her resulting gasp kicks him in the gut. But now is not the time to be getting flustered by her bare skin, and Hak is her friend first before he is a man attracted to her, and reaches for her hand, next, slowly ushering her toward the edge of the table she's co-opted.

"Hey," she mutters, and as soon as she's close enough, Hak braces a hand on her hip instead of her knee. "I was having fun-"

"You can have fun away from men who're trying to throw themselves at you."

Yona huffs. Allows him to lead her anyway, surprisingly submissively, and Hak doesn't let himself follow that particular train of thought. "What," she says, "are you jealous?"

Not exactly. Still, he has a role to play, and if Yona's taking this ploy seriously, who says he can't, too?

"I think _your boyfriend_ has the right to be," he says, loudly enough for it to be impossible for the school of fish around her to ignore. They don't disperse the way he hopes they will. And, well, he's her boyfriend for now, even if it's in name only, and if that's who she wants him to be for the time being, so be it. He'll be the big scary overprotective boyfriend she wants. He'll scare the shit out of her father. He'll scare the shit out of any man trying to sneak a peek beneath her skirt.

Her cheeks are suspiciously pink. He knows its not out of anything but pleasant surprise. "I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was just dancing while I was waiting for you to come back, and then they showed up, and I thought it was because I was really good at it or something, so-"

It's still weird for him to be eye level with her hips. Hak links an arm around her waist and hefts her into his arms, allowing her to slide, slowly, down his chest, until her feet are planted safely on the floor and there aren't wandering eyes seeking out that magical place between her thighs. He thinks not of how warm she is pressed against him, or how soft she'd been, sliding so neatly against his chest, or how hers had pressed against his - he'd said once (or twice) that Yona lacked a certain sex appeal, and it'd certainly been to throw her off his trail. Or perhaps it'd been to hammer it home for himself - that Yona wasn't somebody he could look at with such heated eyes.

Still. He's not made of stone, despite his best efforts. And okay, maybe he'd been a bit jealous of bottom feeders gawking so openly at Yona, the untouchable, and hates himself for it. Here he still is, perpetuating that pedestal she's trying to dearly to climb down from.

"_Boyfriend_," Yona mumbles, nose pressed to his chest.

Something purrs in his gut, ancient and strangled by his leash. Hak links an arm around her shoulder and glares at the residual men, still lingering. "Show's over," he grunts. "Get lost before I call the cops. She's underage."

.

It's less like partying and more like babysitting.

Yona is hard to keep tabs on. She's faster than she looks, and those legs of hers are deceptively long; she squeezes and sneaks her way through a crowd of punks and goths in ways Hak can't. Part of it might be that she's a cute girl, and some of these losers have never spoken to woman in their life, but she's also compact, and her shoulders cut through moshing men and duck beneath thrashing arms.

He does his best. Puts on his best scary face and stares down men who get too handsy. Tries to plant himself as close by as he can without getting in smacking zone of her enthusiastic dancing arms and hands. There's not much of a difference between fake boyfriend and loyal guard dog, he thinks, and it's a little funny, because he's been playing this role even before she'd knighted him. Playing pretend isn't that different from reality, especially when the only thing that's changed is that she's a bit more touchy-feely with him.

He really sort of likes it when she's touchy-feely with him. He also hates it.

It's a double ended blade.

Still, it's nice to see that she's having fun. The whole scene is not one he would've pegged her for, but it's refreshing to see how easily she falls into his step. That purring in his gut refuses to quit, and Hak decides that it's the rumbling of the bass that makes his heart stutter in his chest, and not the pride that comes with Yona fully embracing his venue and hobby of choice.

"This is so fun!"

"So you like being a riot girl after all."

If the crown fits. Yona beams and boogies her way over to him, then takes his wrists into her hands and forces him into step with her. She's not very good at dancing, and she doesn't have the best sense of rhythm, but Hak finds it's still easy to fall under her spell anyway.

"You know," she says after headbanging, "I can see why you like going to these things."

"What, shows?"

"It's like I'm somebody else for a bit." Hak wishes he could pretend she was somebody else, too. But he doesn't comment on such and allows her to finish, watching, distractedly, how she brushes her hair back from her face, how the lipgloss makes her hair stick to her lips. "It's freeing."

Her hair is frizzy and standing on end. It's the cutest thing he's ever seen. Hak takes to smoothing it down instead of responding.

It's like the light's finally clicked on in her head. She gasps and runs her fingers through her fluffy curls. "Oh!" she yelps, jumping back, "does it look bad? Shoot-"

"Your eyeliner is smudged," he says, without missing a beat. "You fit right in."

He can take the girl from the throne, but he can't take the princess out of the girl. She gives him a short, panicked smile. "I'll be right back," she says, excusing herself. "I'm just going to freshen up in the bathroom for a sec-"

"I'll come with you," he says automatically.

Yona's lips press together. "Um, no you won't."

"I'll stand _outside _the bathroom."

"You're not my dad!" she says stubbornly, and stops only to poke him in the stomach before slipping her way through the crowd in that uncanny way of hers.

.

It doesn't stop him from worrying over her.

Stupid. He's not her father, and he ought to remember that - but he is her boyfriend, even if it's all a farse, and he thinks that still allots him a certain amount of concern points. Beyond that, even, he's her friend, and after watching men flock to her table for a chance of touching a real life girl, it's clear that he has good reason to hover. There's something about her that's so magnetic - and Hak would be lying if he didn't feel that same pull, even if there's so much guilt tied up in it that sometimes it's hard to tell what's born from attraction and what's born from responsibility.

Still. He knows how men can be. Knows how clueless Yona can be, and how needlessly kind she can be - and more than that, Hak knows how frustratingly stubborn and headstrong his faux girlfriend is, and it's that and that alone that really motivates him to fight through the crowd and stand outside the ladies restroom like a chaperone, waiting.

If he gets weird looks from the exiting women, whatever. Hak keeps his head down and his arms crossed as he leans against the wall and waits dutifully.

He prepares to wait a while, of course. Yona is nothing if not vain, and especially when it comes to her hair, she's been known to fret. Which is funny, considering how little hair she has left - but then again, the memory of her recklessly chopping it off is still so fresh, and dithering on it sort of makes his fingers itch and his throat tighten.

She'll turn him gray early.

A while becomes too long, eventually, and Hak gets sick of waiting. This guard dog still has a job to do, and so when the next girl leaves the restroom - a girl with bright blue eyes and long, long dark hair - he clears his throat.

She jumps. Squints at him. "Hello?"

"... Is the redhead still in there?"

Dark hair continues to narrow her eyes at her. Two other, taller women begin to flank her protectively. "What's it to you?"

Ah. Well. Hak supposes this could come across as a bit predatory. Hell. "... Just wanted to make sure she's not getting sick in there."

The girl stares at him for a long time, obviously suspicious. Hak supposes he doesn't blame her; he knows there is an alliance of sorts when it comes to women in bar bathrooms, and he doesn't fault them for it; hell, the whole reason why they'd feel the need to unionize is the same reason why he's hanging out here waiting for her to come out anyways. Still, she doesn't know that, and it's not like Hak's known for being looking nonthreatening.

Finally, though, she relents. "Yeah. She's combing her hair."

"Still?"

"Frizzy haired girls have it worst of all," she says, sniffing. "I gave her some liquid courage to get her through it."

Hak blinks. "What."

"She just looked sad! Girls don't let other girls sadly comb their hair in the bathroom."

_Liquid courage._ Hak's brain bluescreens for a moment and then he's rubbing his face. "She's- you didn't look at her hand for a stamp, did you-"

Dark haired girl sticks her note in the air. Shrugs. "She needed a pick me up! Get over yourself. What, are you some kind of overprotective boyfriend or something?"

Hak grits his teeth. "Or something."

"She's fine. It's not like I got her wasted or anything. I just gave her a shot of tequila. It won't kill her."

_Why would you bring tequila into the bathroom with you, _Hak finds himself thinking, but the women on either side of this shorter girl give him a _look, _and he wisely shuts up. Whatever. At least he has confirmation on her location. "Thanks," he says instead.

She raises her brow, even as she's turning to leave. Gives him a look over her shoulder, a long, lingering stare that sort of makes Hak feel like he's being held under a microscope. "... For what?"

Hak stares pointedly at the bathroom door, as if the weight of his stare could will it open, could will Yona into the hallway. "Talking to her."

The girl shrugs and allows her friends to usher her back onto the dance floor - and, presumably, away from the large man hanging outside the women's bathroom. Whatever. It doesn't really matter what people think of him. It never has. If Hak cared what other people thought of him, he wouldn't wear as much black, wouldn't rip his sleeves, wouldn't moodily pick at his bass guitar at three in the morning as often as he does. When it comes down to it, there's really only one or two people he cares for the opinion of.

"Yona," he calls, still outside the bathroom door.

There's shuffling on the other side of the door. Hak can hear the faucet switch off. "Mmh!"

"Yona," he says again, still testing how her name feels on his tongue. It's weird, calling her by her given name and not by any nickname that he's hidden behind for years. "You okay in there?"

The door squeaks, and then Yona's poking her little red head out from the bathroom, narrowing her eyes. "You're not my dad! Don't worry so much, you big lug-"

He grabs her wrist and tugs her out without further thought. She stumbles after him and whines but doesn't trip and fall. So maybe it'd really only been one shot of bathroom tequila and nothing more. Maybe his fake girlfriend can hold her liquor better than he thought she'd be able to.

Which is surprising in itself. Beyond Yona being seventeen and a booze virgin, she's also barely more than five feet tall, and can't weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet. Of course he's going to worry. Reputation dangerous venues are one thing - actually dangerous situations are something else entirely, and he's in the business of worrying her father, not getting her killed or shucked on the side of the road somewhere.

"Ow," she whines, squirming. "Grip, Hak, leggo-"

He loosens his fingers around her wrist but doesn't release her entirely. "Sorry."

"Don't know your own strength?" she asks, and there's a curious smile tugging at her lips, a pink heat warming along her cheeks, across the bridge of her nose. "Big lug."

Such words of endearment for her boytoy. Hak wonders if maybe he should have a drink too, just to get through this night with his heart still intact.

Yona selfconsciouly combs her fingers through her hair with her free hand and looks up at him. "I- does it look okay? I tried wetting it, but once it frizzes there's never any going back…"

She looks every bit the rock and roll vamp queen she'd been aiming to be, poofy hair and all. It's almost cuter, the way her hair refuses to sit and behave, the way the back stands up on end, and the way her bangs seem to fan over her forehead - but he can't tell her that, even under the ruse of pretend, and so he shrugs instead and grunts noncommittally. What more can he offer her?

That smile falls, just a bit, as she begins to comb more vigorously. "Ugh. Maybe headbanging was a bad idea."

"Your neck won't thank you for it, that's for sure."

She slips her wrist from his fingers and elbows him in the gut. "Shush, you."

Soo-Won would compliment her kindly. He knows it. Soo-Won would offer her a pretty smile and tell her she looks lovely no matter what she does, no matter the haircut, no matter the texture - but Soo-Won isn't here, and the whole reason Hak's here is because Yona can't think of anyone less like her prince charming. What a corner she's backed him into.

Indecision will eat him alive. He is Son Hak, coward. He scratches the back of his neck and settles with, "You look fine."

Even without looking at her, he knows she's turned her eyes to him, and her stare could burn him alive. Stupid. What's he doing, feeling so nervous around her? They've done this song and dance a thousand times, he's lived this life a hundred times - attraction to her is not new. Being unable to act upon it is not new either.

What is new is how long her stare lingers.

The back of his neck feels hot. Stupid. "You fit right in. Relax."

"But-"

It's _cute._ He should tell her that the way her hair looks is cute, and should tell her that there's a part of him that wants to run his fingers through the soft curls, even as short as she's cut them.

He doesn't. He is Hak, boyfriend only in name. This is not his role to play in her life. Prince Charming has never been his title.

"You're a cherry bomb now," he finds himself saying instead. "Remember?"

It's weird how in tune with her feelings he is these days. Or maybe she's just not very good at not broadcasting how she feels; Hak doesn't have to look to know that she's smiling. He just sort of knows, instinctively, and though it lifts a weight off of his chest, it plunges that guilt deeper, deeper, a sharp knife to the gut.

He should tell her. Should tell her his motivation, even if it doesn't constitute as a traditional ulterior motive. It's not fair to her, he thinks, to harbor feelings that she's not aware of, to allow her to smile at him like that and take his hand into hers and not know. It's like hiding behind a mask. It's cowardly.

He can't bring himself to do it.

Yona tugs him onto the dance floor and smiles big, and this time he faces her, even as that knife in his gut twists. They play pretend and dance, Yona bouncing to and fro, hands gripping the front of his jean jacket. The way her hair hits her cheek as she jumps is the most adorable thing he's ever seen, and that ancient longing in his bones whispers sweet nothings.

A lesser man could pretend that this was for real. _This_ \- the hand holding, leading her through crowds with a hand between her shoulder blades, the smiles she keeps sending him, _her lips on his cheek_ \- none of it is real. It's to prove a point. To scare her dad, because he's the textbook definition of the type of guy one should never bring home to mom and dad.

There's an insult in there somewhere. He chooses not to face it. It's not like his self loathing needs any more material.

There are bigger things to worry about. Hak leans over and asks, "You feel alright?"

She quirks her head. Raises a brow. "Huh?"

"Your stomach. The tequila."

Yona pinks, then pushes his face away. "Don't baby me so much! Relax! I'm a _bad bitch,_ I can handle a _shot,_ don't-"

She is seventeen. In the middle of a hot dance floor. Sandwiched between people both taller and larger than her. This isn't his first rodeo. Hak pushes her hand away and stares at her expectantly. "Yona."

She bunches up her nose. "It's fine! I just feel warm, and, um, I guess my face is _really_ warm, but-"

Riot girl taking over the world. Hak sighs and relents, only because he knows, instinctively, that pushing will get him nowhere. Yona is as stubborn as she is lovely, and especially now that she's on this maturity kick, there's not a force in the world that could stop her. And for as frustrating as it is, watching her bulldoze through life, watching her throw her hands overhead and _dance,_ it's also endearing, in a weird way. Charming.

He should stop sugarcoating it. It's hot. She's hot. He hates how hot she is.

She'll turn him gray early.

The song ends and Yona stops thrashing around. She looks up at him, a laugh caught in her throat, eyes bright, despite all of the eyeliner rimming them. The hottest raccoon he's ever encountered, and that knife rips out of him, and all at once, Hak feels like his guts are spilling out onto the dancefloor.

"... Oh," she says, more softly, as the music switches to something acoustic. Something sluggish and morose. Her hands shift back to gripping his jacket, and he wonders if she could cauterize the wound, wonders if she could press her hands to his ribcage and force his heart back inside.

Yona shifts back and forth, like it's a middle school dance in here, and she's trying to slow dance with her quarterback crush for the first time.

_Oh. _

"You're too short," Hak says automatically. He hadn't been entirely serious, thinking about Yona forcing his wound shut - pressing her to him wouldn't lessen the bleeding. If anything, it'd run him dry quicker.

What a corner she's backed him into. Does she expect him to bleed out on her? Does she know?

His princess pouts. Tugs on his jacket persistently. "That's quitters talk."

Her pull on him is the most deadly siren's call. He is but her humble servant, it seems, and she wields her word like a weapon. Tilts her head and asks, "please, Hak?" and it's like he's never stood a chance to begin with.

Hak takes her head and presses it into his chest. Perhaps it'll be easier if he can't see her face. If he can't gaze dopily into her eyes maybe it'll be easier for him to write this whole thing off like it hadn't been devastating. It's pathetic; when he'd accepted the job, he'd known what he was getting into, which feelings he was putting on the line. To get so choked up at the way she was looking at him, to feel his blood sing as she links her arms around his waist and snuggles her head into his chest - it's unreasonable. It's suicide.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Part of him had thought it would never get this far. Like her father would take one look at him in his combat boots and towering height and relent, instantly, and then Yona would be planning her wedding to Soo-Won and Hak could go back to pretending like he never had any feelings to begin with. Normal stuff.

Some guard dog he is. Servants have no chance with their masters. He knows that. He's known it for years, since the first time she'd smiled at him and his heart had done that little racing thing it's doing right now.

He needs to be put back into his place, he thinks, even as his hands wrap around her, too, and pull her close. There's no space between them. What can he possibly hide, when she's right there, pressed to his chest? Surely she must hear the beating of his heart. She's dense but not clueless. Yona is stubborn, not _stupid._

Hak banks on that tequila making her a little slow on the uptake. He takes a deep breath and schools himself back into bored indifference. Fake boyfriend. _Fake _boyfriend. Effectively paid muscle. Scary arm candy. The opposite of what she wants.

The _opposite of what she wants_.

Yona turns her face and presses her cheek to his chest instead of her nose. "Soo-Won's never taken me dancing before," she says, far too dreamily.

He just might die here. Her ear is pressed to him now, and if his heart commits mutiny and blows his secret, Hak will never recover. "He's clumsy," Hak says after a moment.

The acoustic guitar swells into a melody. Yona is terrible at keeping a beat, so Hak takes the lead, out of necessity. He guides her back and forth, back and forth, hoping, desperately, that maybe it'll lull her to sleep, with that little bit of alcohol in her blood working as a sedative. It's as cowardly as it is self indulgent, and he doesn't hate himself any less for it.

"Mmm," Yona hums. She allows him to lead her, even if it's more rocking her at this point, and pays no attention to the crowd that's begun to disperse around them.

He wonders, not for the first time, what they're doing here, as if anyone in this joint would actually recognize an heiress and call her folly. Is this what she meant when she said she wanted to embrace the bad girl life? Swaying back and forth in his arms? In a place where no one would know her name? Foolish. Misguided.

And yet here he is, with her anyway. And yet here he is, leading her through it.

"This is fun," she mumbles. "Thanks."

_Don't thank me, _he thinks. _There's nothing to thank me for._

"I think I'd like to do this again someday," she continues, bulldozing forth, as always. "Maybe Soo-Won would want to come along too. We could get disguises…"

Something pinches in his chest. Hak suspects it's his heart. "I can't imagine Soo-Won in eyeliner. Or anything black."

She laughs, then, tiny and honest. "Could you imagine me? The me from before?"

Hak can't separate the two in his head. Yona with short hair and even shorter skirts is still Yona with ribbons tied in her hair and stockings on her skinny legs. They're not two different entities - both are Yona, two parts to her whole, and he doesn't know how to tell her that this girl has always existed inside of her.

"Makeup only changes the way you look," he mutters.

"Yeah," she sighs, "but-"

"You're the only person I know crazy enough to chop all of your hair off. And you've _always_ been this way. Nothing's changed."

Yona makes a little frustrated noise against his chest. It takes everything in him not to collect her into his arms and pull her toward his face, and maybe kiss her on her cheek and see how she likes it. But he doesn't because he is stronger than that, and if nothing else, Hak is of the iron-clad will variety.

"But I'm different now," she says, and her thumb rubs against the line of his spine, perhaps mindlessly, without her consent. And maybe Hak's been wrong all along, and maybe he's a cat and not a dog, because he sort of feels like purring, more than anything else. "I'm-"

"A bad bitch?"

She nods. He thinks she might be hiding a smile in his jacket. "An adult," she corrects. "And I make my own decisions now. Nobody gets to tell me what I can and can't do."

"I think that's just teenage rebellion."

"Do you think I'm being unreasonable?" she asks, all of a sudden. "Or stupid? About marrying Soo-Won, I mean. It's not like it's come out of nowhere. I've always wanted him, and I don't think that makes me impulsive or anything, just because he's suddenly seeing me as a woman…"

She's always been unreasonable about everything. Her heart's too big, too stubborn. "Teenage marriage doesn't tend to last very long."

"But I love him."

He could never forget it. "You might still love him in a few years, too."

"I _know_ I will! So-"

"You're young," he says, though not dismissively. She's young and has her whole life ahead of her, and marriage is a big, weighted decision. "If you still feel this way after your birthday, sure, maybe."

"But it's my decision!"

_So why'd you ask_, he thinks, but doesn't voice. Instead, he says, "It's your decision, and no matter what you decide, I'll support you. Besides. You'll owe me after all of this is over. I'm going to stick annoyingly close and demand to be the best man at your wedding."

"That's Soo-Won's decision, not mine," she says, but she's smiling for sure, and Hak can't decide if it makes him feel better or worse.

He settles for better. It's for the best, this happily ever after that she's planned out in her head, and part of loving someone is wanting to see them succeed. And if this will make her really, truly happy, who is he to get in the way? It's not unreasonable to want to be happy, or to want to be with the person she loves - what's unreasonable is standing in the way of that for selfish reasons.

Reasons like his own feelings.

That thumb's still petting down his spine. Hak could melt here. He sort of wishes he would.


	6. i've got only good intentions

"Y-_Yona_," Kija sputters.

A weird sort of pride surges through her as Kija frets, adorably, over her hair. She supposes the concern is warranted - it's a stark difference to the image she'd worked so hard to portray only a week prior, the good little heiress, long curls meticulously maintained, decorated with ribbons and delicate hairpins alike - but still, the _pride_ is surprising. She's not sure exactly where it stems from. Kija isn't who she'd been aiming to scare.

Well, whatever, Yona thinks, tucking a chopped curl behind her ear. Motivation is motivation, and if Kija's big blue eyes glittering wistfully at her is enough to fill her with satisfaction then so be it. She'll take it.

"Don't worry so much!" she chirps, grinning. "I never liked my hair very much anyway, you know that. Sometimes a girl just needs a change!"

He places his hands very gently on her shoulders. "You weren't pressured into this, were you?"

From behind, Hak chokes on a laugh. For his part, he does his best to appear the bad boyfriend she's strong-armed him into being, keeping a watchful eye out for any of her father's employees, in case he needs to sling an arm around her waist and get playfully handsy. Or… as playfully handsy as Hak can get, anyway; there's only so much acting a guy like Hak can do, and it's not like he hasn't made it abundantly clear that she isn't his type (read: sexy).

But there's not as much for them to prove for _Kija. _Hak only looms behind her, eyeliner smudged, one brow quirked - he's amused.

It makes her feel a little less bad about bullying him into helping her.

And then he opens his mouth. "You should've seen her before Yoon gave her a trim. Now that was scary."

"I take back every nice thing I've ever said about you," Yona hisses, spinning on her toes to face him. Her infuriating arm candy _grins_ at her. "It wasn't that bad!"

"Like one of those little troll dolls you used to be afraid of."

"That doesn't even make sense! My hair was not sticking up like that, it just- there was one cowlick, okay, but it wasn't _that _bad!"

"Sure."

What does he know, anyway? Yona's not convinced Hak even brushes his hair most days. He just rolls out of bed with that stupid bedhead of his and leaves legions of girls sighing over him and how _misunderstood _and _lonely_ he is. It's weird. And gross. And the more it keeps happening the more it pisses her off.

"ANYWAY," she says cuttingly, shoving him a good foot away from her before turning to Kija instead. "_The point is_ I chose to cut my hair, and it was on my own terms, so you don't have to worry about it! Besides, I think I kind of like it better this way. It's so much less work, and I use so much less product when I wash it…"

It's clear he's still caught on a ledge, teetering between concern and indignance at Hak's proximity. And, well, she supposes that's fair, too — she's always been close to the guy, but it's been a constant companionship lately, and for Kija, who's interning at her father's company, to watch Yona gallivant around with the big lug and show him off like some sort of muscle car, well. All of the change is probably concerning.

Rightfully so. She hopes it is. She hopes her father finally notices.

But stressing Kija out isn't any fun. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and his eyes are far too honest to be crinkled so. If he gets early wrinkles because of this, Yona will never forgive herself. And she will also never hear the end of it.

"_Really_," she insists, grabbing his hands and holding them in her own. "This is what I wanted. Please don't worry so much over me."

A sunburn she hadn't realized he had glows pink as he bows his head. Poor Kija; she knows exactly what it's like to be fair skinned, but he practically glows white in the sunlight, and it must be hell to have to constantly lather himself in aloe.

"I-If you say so!" he stutters, hands trembling, just a little. "But if he— if at any point you regret it, let me know and I'll—"

"I cut my hair myself," she says, smiling. "If I regret it then it's my own fault!"

Hak snorts from behind her. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Nobody asked him! Oh, what she wouldn't give to turn around and clobber him for his sharp tongue. They're supposed to be living on honeymoon avenue, for goodness sake, not grilling one another like an old married couple. Sure, there's not a lot they have to prove to Kija, of all people — _or _Jae-Ha, whose grinning is becoming increasingly infuriating, too — but still! There's probably a certain level of professionalism they should maintain, since this is sort of a business deal or… something. At the very least, Hak could keep his ribbing to a medium. He could at least pretend that he thinks she looks hot. Like he had the other night at the show!

Yes. That'd been excellent work on his part. He'd loomed like the big bad boyfriend he was supposed to be, and had lead her through crowds with a hand between her shoulder blades and steely eyes, cutting through potential suitors and blabbermouths alike. When he wants to, Yona knows he can play the part well. When push comes to shove, Hak's the most intimidating man in the room.

But he's so darn lazy. And easy going! Would it kill him to pretend like he's attracted to her?

So she turns to pout at him. Sticks out her tongue, too. "I'm trying to protect your face, sweetheart."

His lips press together and he makes a face, as if he'd just tasted something sour. "_Sweetheart_."

"What would you rather be called? Dear? Babe? Pookie?"

Jae-Ha nearly howls with laughter. "Oh! Yona dear, _please _keep calling him 'pookie'. Nothing would make me happier."

Kija's hands continue to tremble. Yona squeezes them placatingly and rolls her eyes, turning back to face him. He's always so skittish — sometimes, she thinks he might have a Thing about people touching him - but then whenever she does close the distance between them, he always ends up smiling at her, however timidly. It's not unlike having a pet chihuahua.

Only he's much, much larger than one, and his jawline is too handsome for that. Yona squeezes his hands again and he does smile this time, a little more confidently. "I know he's kind of irritating sometimes but he listens to me. And I like him."

Jae-Ha's simpering only gets worse. Hak exhales through his nose and Kija's smile twitches.

No matter; they only have to think she's serious, not _like_ it.

"Come on, _pookie,_" Yona says then, dropping Kija's hands to instead grab the leather of Hak's jacket and give him a hearty tug. "I want something to eat."

.

Hak doesn't seem to like being called 'pookie' very much.

Admittedly, it's a little cutesy. Yona dithers on it while sipping on her smoothie, legs dangling over the trunk of his car as she watches him fetch the hotdog she'd ordered. If she's being honest, it doesn't suit him; Hak isn't a _pookie, _and he's not a _pumpkin,_ and certainly not a _darling,_ but the more she thinks on it the more frustrated she gets.

There's just not a good pet name for him. He's composed of too many contradictions, handsome but devilish, kind but conniving, broad but one of the least threatening men she knows. He's as athletic as he is brooding, as hardworking — and muscular, god — as he is lazy and nap-loving. It's hard to pin just one trait on him. Harder, even, to romanticize and sugarcoat one thing and lovingly refer to him as such.

With Soo-Won it's easy. Soo-Won is so many things; he's honey, he's sweetheart, he's dear. Soo-Won is _prince charming,_ and happily ever after, and the beginning of her storybook romance.

Hak is different.

And maybe she's going about this wrong anyway. Maybe she shouldn't be trying to think of a name for him that suits him and instead should be brainstorming pet names that would instead bother other people.

Namely her father.

"Maybe I should call you Daddy," Yona says thoughtfully.

Hak very nearly trips and dumps her hot dog on the faded black paint of his trunk. "Excuse me?"

"I keep trying to think of something cutesy to call you," she says, blinking, watching as he gathers his bearings again and hands her the food. "Because I thought it'd be obnoxious and smothering and my father would get sick of it. But maybe I'm going about it wrong. Maybe I should be trying to gross him out instead. Or make him mad!"

Hak's expression is exhausted. "Do I get a say in this."

"Yes. I mean..." She hands him her smoothie and then takes a bite of her hot dog, chewing slowly. Hak hops up to sit beside her and takes a long, noisy slurp of her drink. "Hey!"

"I paid for it. And I'm holding it for you, your highness."

Yona pouts and nudges him with her elbow. "I said you didn't have to. I tried to pay for it, remember?"

He chuffs and takes another long sip before sitting it carefully beside them. Hak cracks his neck and leans back, arms stretching behind his neck. "Losers let their girlfriends pay for their dates. Even if they're fake girlfriends."

"Sometimes the fake girlfriend is rich and has her father's credit card," Yona says, setting the hot dog down onto her lap long enough to poke his thigh playfully. "And sometimes the goal is to piss her dad off anyway. I could've paid for it."

"Whatever," he says, squinting into the sun. "I don't backwash. It's fine. Anyway. Do I get to pick my own nickname or are you just going to call me whatever you want."

He never seems to phrase these things as questions. Feeling both lenient and also a little guilty, Yona offers him a bite of her hot dog. While he accepts it and chews noisily, Yona looks to the sun, too, and wonders aloud, "Maybe Daddy's the right answer, though."

"God I hope not."

"You don't like it when I call you Daddy?"

The swallowing almost looks painful. Hak's face screws together into something of a grimace and he says, very seriously, "It feels weird."

"It's supposed to be weird! It's like, the whole 'sorry, your daughter calls ME Daddy now' thing." Yona nods very sagely, then stops looking at Hak to look into the sun thoughtfully again. Then she stops, because her eyes hurt and now she's kind of seeing dark spots.

"Please stop saying that."

It's a little cruel, because he's clearly uncomfortable with it, but at the same time it is sort of funny, watching him be so visibly turned off by the idea. Which is good, if she's being honest — Yona doesn't like calling him Daddy very much either, but still, she's pretty sure she's on to something here. If parading Hak around like a black stallion and making mock kissy faces at him whenever her father's around isn't working, and if trending on Twitter for 10 hours because she'd been spotted moshing wasn't the ticket, then surely something so weirdly sexual and uncomfortable will do the trick.

"You could call me something funny too. Fair's fair," she says, then takes the last bite of her hot dog and dots at her mouth politely with a napkin.

Hak snorts and drops his arms beside him. "What. Like Baby?"

Something jumps in her chest. Yona can't place it. Maybe she's getting sunburnt now, too, because her face feels hot, and maybe she needs to up the SPF in her cc cream, because that's just not normal. She shouldn't have any reaction to that at all. Huh.

When she doesn't immediately respond he looks at her suspiciously. Yona wipes her face more aggressively with her napkin.

"Hey," he says, reaching out to grab her wrist, "your lipstick."

Oh. Shoot. Yona pinks from actual embarrassment this time and lowers her hand guiltily. "Oops."

"Idiot," Hak mutters, but it's far too affectionate for him to really mean it.

It's weird; _baby _had felt a little uncomfortable and had turned something in her chest, but idiot feels so fond and familiar that she smiles a little. If Hak notices, he doesn't say anything, and instead busies himself with taking the napkin from her hands and cleaning the mess she's made on her face in her flustering. All things considered, idiot should be an insult, and baby, though debatably condescending and infantilizing, is a normal term of endearment between consenting partners.

She blames it on the weather. The heat makes her slow on the uptake.

"There," he says, crumpling the napkin in his hand. "Better. Mostly."

"Do I look hot and ravaged?"

Hak raises a brow and shrugs a shoulder.

Well, what is she supposed to make of that? Yona ruffles her hair for good measure and then whips out her phone. "Because if I do, this is the perfect moment to add something to my Instagram story, and maybe someone will leak it to Twitter and we can get trending again—"

"Clout chaser."

"Social media is _news_ these days. Stay with the times!" she demands, then grabs her smoothie and sucks down what's left of it. "Here. Sit still."

Yona scoots closer until their legs are pressed together. The warmth of his black jeans almost burns the bare skin of her thigh, but she persists, still, holding her phone up and testing the lighting and angle until it's at least a little bit flattering. Natural light is the best, but with where the sun is in the sky right now, and the angle they're sitting at — it just washes them out. And beyond that, it's difficult to get them both in the same shot with their height difference; Yona's not tall, but what little height she does have is in her legs, truly, and Hak is just a tank of a man.

"Darn," she mutters. "No good. You're too big."

He doesn't say anything, but she can see the shit-eating grin in her front-facing camera.

Ugh. _Boys._

"Here," she says, "actually, I have a better idea—"

"Wh— _Princess,_" Hak grunts, as Yona clambers her way onto his leg, sitting daintily.

Better. This way, she can bring the camera in closer, and the lighting's far less harsh. True to form, Hak had done a bang-up job of cleaning up her lipstick, but it's still undeniably faded and smudged in places, and that does the job, that's for sure.

"Maybe I should kiss your face or something," she mumbles, squinting into the camera. "Or… your neck. For evidence."

Hak's expression betrays nothing. "If you think that'll work."

"You're okay with it?"

"If I wasn't used to you doing whatever you wanted I wouldn't have lasted this long already."

Yona wipes her thumb over her lip and then presses it to his neck, smudging the vampy red there, effectively branding him. His expression still betrays nothing, but his skin is warm, and a little sweaty from the heat, and smearing her lipstick right under his jaw is a little too easy. And it's hard to really shape it like her mouth with her thumb.

Finally, his mask cracks, and Hak can't hide his crooked smile. "You are the worst artist I've ever met."

"Hey! I've never— _you_ try it then, if you're so talented—"

"Just." He sighs, clearly defeated. "... Use your mouth if it's that important. It's fine. Don't worry, I won't do anything."

That's not what she's worried about. Yona trusts Hak not to try anything with her, and knows in her heart that despite his teasing, he really does have her best interests at heart. And he's not even a little bit attracted to her, and he's made such clear to her many, many times — but still, it feels invasive, even if he gives his permission. These are things he's supposed to cherish with someone special.

… But he hadn't had a problem dancing close to her at that rock show, and he's let her kiss his face before. Perhaps Yona should do a better job taking his word for it. What's the difference? If he says it's fine then it's fine.

The phone drops to her lap. Yona plants a hand on his face to hold him steady and does not think on how sharp his jaw is, nor does she focus on the stubble beneath the palm. It's scratchy, and he must've forgone shaving this morning — a faux pas Soo-Won would never commit — but it feels sort of… nice on her cheek. And when she's this close, she can smell his deodorant, something simple and clean and warm, and even warmer than that is his skin, thin beneath her lips.

She can feel the strumming of his pulse. Yona knows she ought to make it good, to make this uncomfortable situation worth it, and so she braves more than just a simple peck. She might use her teeth if she knew how to properly leave a hickey, but she's too inexperienced and cowardly to try. Instead, she moves her mouth further north, until her lips are pressed to the crook of his neck, where throat meets jaw, and that stubble drags across her cheek in the process, a little rough, a lot interesting, a texture she's not quite used to.

His breath catches, and Yona jerks back instinctively, guiltily, as if she'd been burned.

She sort of feels burned. Her face must be on fire. Swallowing hurts.

"... Sorry," he says, but his voice is rougher than it had been before, hm. "Your lashes tickle."

Yona forces out a laugh and smiles, though she suspects it doesn't quite meet her eyes. "Sorry. Um."

Eyeing her handiwork feels weird, too. Her blood runs hot in her veins, and her hands feet sweatier than they had before; holding her phone in her hand is difficult, and so Hak has to take over, holding their camera steady.

Can't have the photo be blurry, after all. Not after all of that. Now they really need to make this good.

"Cheese," she says, in a voice that almost sounds like her own.

Yona is both herself and not, as she cradles Hak's jaw in her hands and cozies up to him for the camera. It's alarmingly easy to play it up for the 'gram, and Yona doesn't think about the mark she's left on him, the damning, almost bloody looking mouth-shaped smear along his throat.

It's for Soo-Won, she tells herself. This rush of her blood, the way she presses herself against Hak's chest and flutters her lashes purposefully — it's for happily ever after. It's for her independence. He will understand. It's not like she's doing anything wrong. All of this is just for show anyway.

Hak links his arm around her waist and holds her closer. It must be to steady her, because she's balanced so precariously on one of his legs, but it's warm in his embrace, and it's difficult for her to think about anything else but the way his pulse had jumped beneath her mouth. The way his skin had tasted salty beneath her tongue, in the brief half-second her lips had parted.

"There," he says, and he's found his mask again. He doesn't look even half as ruined as she feels. "These good?"

Yona can't even focus on them right now. Yona clicks her phone and shoves it into her pocket, feeling jittery and too hot and weirdly clammy. Stupid. Of course it's nothing to get worked up over. Hak really had just been ticklish, and she has lash extensions, so of course — of course. Nothing happened. There's nothing to get flustered over.

Besides. He'd said it was fine. She needs to trust him.

"Yeah," she says, but her voice still feels miles away. "Thanks. I'll go through them later. Um. Can we go home? It's hot out here."

He pats her back placatingly and helps her down from their perch atop his trunk. God. Once she's on her feet it's like she's been out at sea for years, and Yona struggles, stubbornly to find her land legs again. There's no reason for her to be so jelly legged over something so minuscule. So what, she hasn't kissed a lot of boys, so _what_. It's just Hak. And he doesn't seem even a little bit bothered by it.

She'll have to call Soo-Won tonight and talk it over. It's been a while since she's heard from him. That's gotta be it.

"Can't wait for summer to be over," he says, spinning his keys around his finger. "Hate feeling so sweaty."

Yona takes three deep breaths and reminds herself who she is, and what she's doing this for. The picture will be great. It will go viral. Her father will see it and crack, and Yona can stop cozying up to her good friend and making things weird. At least Hak has the maturity to be cool about it.

At least Hak has the maturity to be honest about it. She lets out a breath and marches her way over to his passenger seat; if nothing else, at least she has confirmation that he's really, truly not attracted to her. And it should be comforting, knowing that he will never try anything with her, and that she's picked the right man to play this game of theatrical chicken with. Soo-Won could find comfort in that, surely; Hak's hands never stray to places she's told him are off limits. He lets her kiss his neck without getting weird about it. Hak glowers for the camera and lets her test pet names on him.

And it's comforting for her. It is. Really.

.

"I won't call you Daddy if you don't like it," she says, after he's started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

Hak keeps his eyes on the road. "Whatever you think's best. I'm just along for the ride."

Yona stares out the passenger seat window. Rolls the crank down and lets the wind trash her curls. Ah. That's better. Maybe what she'd needed all along was some fresh air. It's kind of stuffy in here, in Hak's old car, with the broken air conditioner and fuzzy radio reception. Maybe what she'd needed was just to get out of her own head.

She really _is_ an idiot.

"Thank you," she says into the wind.

He doesn't say anything for a long time. Yona thinks maybe he hasn't heard her, and so she says it again, a little more clearly this time, just a breath more bravely, bangs fluttering around her face. But he sighs, just barely audibly, and says, "Sure," and turns up the radio.

A bass line buzzes to life. It plucks something out of her chest. Yona hopes it's not her heart. The poor thing's too desperate for her own good.


	7. nothing will change if you never choose

Hak leans in towards Yona's bathroom mirror and inspects the damage, neck crooked, brows furrowed.

He knows he shouldn't think about it, knows he should just hurry up and finish undressing so that he could wash the stain from his skin, but still, the lipstick is evidence that it happened, even if it'd been under less than ideal circumstances. It's weird. Realistically, he should probably be annoyed with her, or perhaps even frustrated that she'd taken her sweet time marking him with her mouth, but — but there's an annoying tug in his chest, and Hak stands there beneath her bright white lights, feeling stupid and clingy and completely out of sorts.

It's like his brain is still buffering. It's been two hours since the ordeal and Hak still can't process it. And the ride home had been _weird,_ and Yona even _weirder, _and maybe if he stands here long enough the lights will just melt him down to his bones.

He leans back. Takes three deep breaths and reminds himself of who he is and what he's meant to be doing. Yes, that's more like it. Now's not the time to be getting all twisted up over something Yona had surely thought nothing of. He'd known what he was getting himself into when he'd told her yes, he'd play the big scary _anyone else_ for her; getting worked up over it is just out of the question. And it's immature. If this is his grave then he has to sit down and be okay with that, because he's been the one digging it for weeks now.

Still. It's hard to ignore the way her lipstick looks on him. It's not unlike a brand, like she'd decided he was the cattle she owned and wanted everyone to know it, and that alone should piss him off.

It doesn't. It does the opposite. He takes another breath and then forces it back out through his nose. This isn't about him, dammit. This isn't about his feelings, and it's not about his happily ever after. He should know better.

Then the door swings open and Yona's in the bathroom too, spluttering, "Soo-Won's on his way over!"

That's right. He _does_ know better. It's not his place to think she looks cute with raccoon eyes and smudged lipstick. She already has a suitor selected for that.

And he can't even fault her for it. Soo-Won is an excellent choice. Soo-Won is her _type_.

"You could knock, you know," Hak deadpans.

"I— but— you need to hurry, a-and you're not even—!" She blinks rapidly and looks him over, as if just now realizing he wasn't in the shower yet, and that meant he was shirtless and still wearing her lipstick on his skin.

It's like _her _brain is buffering. Hak raises a brow at her.

"... You're supposed to be showering?" she squeaks finally, far more feebly than he'd expected. Her eyes linger longer than they need to, and Hak thinks maybe he's gone and gotten himself in trouble now for taking too long in her bathroom.

So he shrugs. If she wishes to reprimand him, he will bow his head like the faithful dog he is.

"You're…! Not even completely _naked,_ a-and I haven't heard the shower yet, Hak!" Yona huffs, seemingly collecting herself, and there's the firecracker he loves so much. She spins on her heels and marches out, the tips of her hair bouncing against her neck, skirt fluttering against her thighs, and he might as well be naked, _christ. _

Hak frees himself from his ultra skinny jeans and turns the water on. Keeps turning the knob until the temperature is approximately freezing and lets the cold shower do its thing. Bad dog.

.

He showers quickly and drip-dries on Yona's duvet as she rushes around, trying to find a way to present herself as both dangerous and also conventionally desirable.

Maybe a nap would be the best choice of action.

Maybe he'll be able to nap throughout the entire visit and wake up three years later, and Yona will be married to Soo-Won and he'll be playing rugby on weeknights and guitar on weekends, and everything will be the way it should be. Yona will grow her hair back out and Soo-Won will spend meticulous, sentimental nights combing it back, tying her stubborn curls in pink ribbons, and Hak won't be caught in the middle of their romance.

Ugh. His chest feels fuzzy. Like there's tv static stuck in the monitor of his heart, and no matter how he tries to spin the situation, he can't seem to find better reception. It makes sleeping impossible, and if there's one thing he hates, it's being kept from a well-needed nap.

Yona's pacing doesn't help. Hak grunts and throws his arm over his face. "Soo-Won won't care what you wear."

He doesn't need to see her to know she's spun to pout at him. No matter how old she gets, and no matter how she tries to fashion herself, Yona will always be Yona, and he knows her mannerisms like the back of his hand. It would be cute, if he was allowed to think such, but he is not, so Hak keeps his arm over his eyes and tries breathing out while he mentally counts to ten.

In. And then out. Easy. There's still twenty minutes left to nap before all hell breaks loose. That's it.

"... I want him to think I'm pretty," she admits from across the room. Probably her walk-in closet. "But I also don't want my father to think I'm not taking this seriously, because _I am,_ and I don't want all of this work to have been for nothing-"

"What's wrong with what you're wearing now?"

"What if he doesn't like me in black?"

Soo-Won would like her in anything, because he is a sensible human being, and Yona looks good in everything. But especially black. _Especially _short black pleated skirts and smudged black eyeliner.

"Don't worry about it."

"I have to!" She slams her closet doors shut and whines. "I can't just, like, turn it off, you know! Some of us can't just sleep our problems away, you butt-"

Hak sits and stares at her. With all the rushing around she's done, her hair's gone the full frizz, fluffy around her ears and standing on end. And despite the tone of her voice, there's a hardness there in her eyes, a boiling steel that's begun to take shape, and Hak doesn't know what to do with that. He'd seen it once before, when she'd marched into her room and chopped her hair off in a fit of righteous fury, but it feels… different now.

He really doesn't know what to do with it. Instead, he scrubs at his face and tries not to think about anything. "You look fine."

She bites her lip. "Do you think so?"

His opinion holds no weight, but. "Black suits you. He has eyes. Relax."

Something rises in _her _eyes, not unlike the sun, but it refuses to set, and instead Yona stands there hugging a dress to her chest and stares back at him, face pink.

Maybe that sun did set and he'd just blinked and missed it. Hak continues to not think about anything and drops his hand to his side and stares right back at her. This pretty little princess has always been excellent at fishing for compliments - not that she'd ever needed to, of course - but just this once, Hak feels lenient. Just this once, he will allow her to pluck whatever courage she needs from him. If it will help weld that steel in her eyes, will help her craft her weapon, he will be her right hand man.

Or maybe he's just tired of playing charades with her. Maybe the reception in his heart is permanently busted. Fuck it. It's too hard to tell anymore. This hole he's dug himself into has no way out.

Her phone chirps to life before Yona has a chance to respond. It gives her an out and she takes it, practically ripping her phone out of her pocket as if it'd burned her. For all he knows, it had. For a minute there, he was pretty sure she was dead set on staring him down until he'd cracked beneath her pressure and spilled his beans. It takes a special kind of concentration to do that. Especially from Yona.

Hak cracks his neck and sighs. The text's probably from Soo-Won anyway. Looks like his shift is over.

"... Oh."

"Oh?"

"Oh," Yona says, visibly wilting. "Oh. He's…. oh."

That tv static in his chest goes wild. Hak struggles with the antenna and clenches his fingers around the fabric of Yona's duvet. "What."

When Yona looks back to him, her steel's gone liquid, and that sun has sunk to beneath the horizon. Night seems to have fallen again, and Yona does the meekest shrug as she slips her phone back into her pocket. "Something came up. He wants to reschedule for next week."

"Just now?"

She nods, a tiny, jerking motion. "He sends his apologies."

Buh. A lot of good that does. Thoughts and wishes don't seem to sate Yona's rapidly falling expression; try as she might, the little heiress has always worn her heart on her sleeve, and though she thinks she might be slick, it's a little too easy to read her moods. For Hak, at least, Yona is an open book - but especially when it comes to Soo-Won. Especially when it comes to her blatant, harrowing attraction to Soo-Won.

It's not hard to tell she's disappointed. He wonders if she's even trying to pretend like she isn't disappointed. She doesn't wipe her eyes, but she _does _blink rapidly, and even if tear stained cheeks are pretty punk, that doesn't make it any easier for him to watch.

He is beyond boned. This is next level punishment.

He tries to leave it alone. Tries to ignore it and carry on with his nap - because not all is lost, rest can still be had - but it's impossible. Hak can't stop himself from sneaking glances at her as she turns to hang her dress back up in her closet, and, "Have you tried?" slips out before he can stop himself.

"What?"

There's no going back now, Hak tells himself. He's already in far too deep to call it quits. Besides. Considering what's already conspired today, what else could possibly hurt him? The knife's already lodged in his chest. What's a little more twisting? The damage has already been done. At this point, Hak is just biding his time until the blade's removed and he actually does bleed out on her white marble floor.

"Have you tried? Sleeping your problems away, I mean."

"... I?"

"You make fun of me for it and you've never even tried it," Hak scoffs, falling too easily into this role that he's been granted. If he's going to be properly knighted, he thinks, as Yona's boyfriend, even only in name, he might as well do his damn job.

She looks at him from over her shoulder. Blinks. Smudges that messy eyeliner all over her under eye.

"C'mon," he sighs, collapsing backwards onto her bed once more. Hak closes his eyes and tries to pretend like his mind's eye doesn't produce images of her even when he's purposely not looking. "Nap time."

"Hak," Yona says, but he can hear footsteps.

"We're trending. Celebrate a victory. _Sleep._"

She sighs. Sniffles, and probably wipes her eyes dry, now that he's not watching her. He tries to keep his expression neutral and keep the corners of his mouth from curling and smiling. She is not cute, he thinks, very intently - and he knows he's lying to himself, but even then, he shouldn't be smiling at a time like this - but then the mattress dips, just barely, beneath her kitten weight, and then Yona's laying beside him.

Hak allows his eyes to open, just a crack. Yona lays facing him, hair messy, bangs falling over her eyes.

"This won't work," she says. "I'm too stressed to sleep."

Well, he can't have that, can he? What sort of wannabe boyfriend would he be, if he let his princess go on without some well-needed moody nappage?

"Drama queen," he says without any bite. Brushes her hair from her eyes and tries not to think about how her eyelashes tickle as she blinks against the side of his palm. There's something sappy in this, in grazing her cheek with the gentlest of touches, but it's something Hak does not allow himself to savor. He is playing a part. He is filling a role that has never been truly his.

Yona sighs. Bites her lip and gradually her eyes shut, and there's so much eyeliner smudged on her face at this point it sort of... blurs her features. It makes her look a little dead, and though Hak thinks that's hot in its own way, it's not Yona.

So he swipes his thumb over her eyelid. His skin comes back stained dark and damp, and Yona's eyes blink open, surprised.

He is playing a part. She isn't his. They're trending on Twitter for fuck's sake because Yona had sucked on his neck for the sake of marrying Soo-Won. He is _playing a part_.

"Don't want to stain your pillowcases," he says, finally. "Yoon's got enough work to do."

She puffs. Squirms next to him, knee bumping his, and Hak does not think about it, not even a little bit. "Yoon is not my maid."

"Fine. Your _maids _have enough work to do."

Yona makes a little whining sound. Hak is still not thinking, so he definitely doesn't find it adorable in the slightest. "I'm supposed to look punk rock," she says, and then her eyes are sliding shut again, even though there's still a furrow to her brow. "I have a baby face. I need as much makeup as I can get to try to make it work."

"Even punks sleep sometimes."

"I thought you were goth?"

Smartass. He loves her.

.

Hak wakes to Yona curled up beneath his chin, not unlike a cat. Her hands are curled up into tiny fists, clenched up against his chest, cheek squished against his shoulder, nose poking his collarbone.

It's not how he'd fallen asleep. Hak had been meticulous in keeping distance between them, and while he's still in that cotton-mouthed post-nap haze, he sort of… squints out her window, considering if this is a dream or not. Because this is how a lot of his dreams go, and try as he might, the door to his heart can only stay locked so long as he is awake. Subconscious Hak is another man, a _weaker_ man, and so nap-drunk Hak slips, just for a moment, and gives in to temptation, wrapping his arms around her.

She's warm. And tiny. Yona is five foot nothing and thin - he can feel her shoulder blades through the fabric of her torn t-shirt. If he really focuses on it, he's pretty sure he can feel the strap of her bra, pinned beneath the meat of his palm.

He does not think about it. Or maybe he does, and it jolts him awake, like ice water injected straight to his veins.

Fuck. He's not dreaming. Yona's a sleep cuddler. It's both endearing and terrifying, because who knows how long she's been snuggled up to him mindlessly, and who knows what would've happened, had Hak rolled over. He is twice her size and certainly heavy enough to crush her in his sleep.

"Hhhh," Yona huffs, still pressed to his chest. "Five more minutes…"

She _has_ to know this isn't a dream either. Hak begins the task of peeling his little heiress off of him without completely disturbing her rest - because really, he's happy this whole little scheme worked, beyond his own selfish desire to hold her in his arms. A good nap can solve most problems and it can distract and momentarily put the ones it can't solve on hold. Unpacking Yona's feelings for Soo-Won and her disappointment is intimidating and messy, to say the least - but sleeping off the immediate hangover has always been Hak's catch-all cure.

"Comfy…." she whines, squirming.

It's like dealing with a toddler. Hak sits up and plops her down onto her pillows unceremoniously.

"-! _Hey_," she says, yelping a little, eyes wide open, and - oh. Her face is still stained with mascara tears.

It cracks him open a bit. That door to his heart trembles beneath the weight of his yearning, but Hak holds steadfast and true and knocks the handle clear off with a mental sledgehammer.

"... Arm was asleep," he lies.

"Bleh." Yona scrubs the sleep from her eyes and squirms, precious and adorable and god dammit, she's so cute, what is he supposed to do? He wants to protect her from her own feelings. He wants to protect her from _his_. "How long… what time…"

"Well," Hak says, "it's dark now, so."

Yona blinks blearily at her ceiling. "I think… I'm late for dinner."

"Thought that was canceled."

She seems mostly at peace with her thwarted feelings now. Yona continues looking to her ceiling, blinking slowly, breathing calmly. It's so different from the version of her she's been the past couple of days - Yona has been so gungho to make her point that he's hardly seen her sit in one place for more than a few minutes at a time. It's always been something with her, be it planning outings or acting out in front of her father. And even then, he thinks, watching her stretch, squeaking as her bones shift and click into place - even then, when she'd been Yona, spoiled, perfect princess, she'd still been a busy body. He didn't think she knew how to slow down.

It's nice seeing her like this. Hak sort of wonders last time she slept soundly was. It's not like he can make out any natural darkness under her eyes beneath all of the artificial stuff.

"... Still… have dinner with my father," she says, then cracks her neck. Rubs her face. Yawns again.

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Huh?"

"You being late for dinner, I mean," he says, scrubbing at the back of his neck. "Especially if it's because you were locked up in here with me. And. I mean. Your makeup's a mess."

She peeks at him through the cracks of her fingers. There's a single moment more of her sleepy eyes before his words sink in and that's it, the fire lights up in her again.

Even behind her hands, Hak can still make out her grin.

"Why, Son Hak," she says, and then she's sitting up and beaming, poking him right in the shoulder. "Are you suggesting I pretend you ravaged me?"

Ravaged her. Jesus. "It's not a lot to ravage," he says, trying to be blasé. "Not like it would take very long."

"Hey!"

"But if the shoe fits," he says, poking her back, right on her forehead. He towers over her so easily, and it would be simple, he thinks, to tug her back into the warmth of her bed and sleep a little longer.

It's not that he has stage fright. Hak will play any role she wants him to, will wear the mask of any man she sees most useful, and will do so with only a minor amount of complaining - he's not afraid of this masquerade. Hak isn't afraid of anything, not really, it's just…

Things had been… nice, laying here with her. Quiet and simple, and that yearning whimpers from behind the door he's mentally demolished. It's selfish of him to want to remain behind the curtain for a few moments longer, existing with her without pretense, allowing himself to be so close to her without the need for bravado.

But that's not what he's here for, is it? To think otherwise would be foolish, and the evidence of such is still stained with mascara on her face. He is here to play the part of the big bad, the dangerous alternative to Soo-Won's perfect light. It's what Yona's asked of him. It's what Yona wants from him, and he'd already decided to be her right-hand man long ago. To ask for anything else would be cruel. Yona doesn't owe him anything - Yona's feelings are her own, and to feel frustrated or hurt by them would be his own fault. It's not like he didn't know what he was getting himself into.

Yona's pouting is adorable. She rubs her forehead and then stares up at him, and to be needed by her, in any capacity, is still his greatest pleasure in life. Fuck it.

"You really want to make this convincing?"

She nods. Her curls bob around her ears, chopping and adorable. Her neck glows, pale and delicate, beneath her string lights.

HIs voice is not his own. Hak leans toward her and cups her jaw in his hand, and Yona doesn't flinch. She watches him with those big, bright eyes of hers, and morning has surely come, but Hak's not finished dreaming yet. "... Do you trust me?"

"Hak," Yona says, brows furrowed. "Of course."

It's for her. It's for her. "Let me…" He clears his throat. _It's for her_. "... You can say no."

"I don't know what I'm saying no to?"

_Anything,_ he thinks. _Everything. Me._ "... I just thought some physical evidence would freak the old man out."

She must sense him staring at her neck. He hasn't been looking her in the eye for most of this conversation, be it because of his cowardice or terrible, overwhelming obsession with her skin. Realization surely sets in, and he feels her jaw tighten, just barely, beneath his palm.

He is a dutiful guard dog. Hak retreats immediately. "Sorry."

"No," Yona says, gripping his wrist, tugging him back, ensnaring him further. "No, don't apologize. That's a great idea. Maybe he's not reacting because he just thinks I'm doing things to you. If he thinks I'm being taken advantage of…"

She _is _being taken advantage of. He feels dirty and grimy, for keeping this terrible secret within him. None of this is an act for him. She has to know, doesn't she? Hak's poker face may be second to none but this is different. She's magnetic and he can't seem to stop orbiting her, and- and it feels deceitful, to ask for such a thing, while she's still so clueless.

It will go nowhere. He will mark her in the most clinical sense. His lips press together, tongue heavy and useless.

"... Besides," she says, smiling distantly, but there's a look in her eye he can't quite read. "I already took advantage of you, right? So many times."

"Yona," he says, finally. "You can say no."

"I won't. I'm not a coward. And this is a good idea."

It's not about being a coward. It's about personal space and protecting her heart. It's about savoring these things, about saving them for the man she loves, the man she deserves. Suggesting it had been a moment of weakness, and Hak knows it, but… is drastic measures won't put an end to this, what will? How long will they be stuck playing this game? How long will he have to carry this guilt with him?

"... Tilt your head," Hak mutters, unable to help himself. "Need your neck."

"Fair's fair," she hums, and she leans her cheek into the palm of his hand, lashes brushing his thumb.

Desperate measures have to solve this. They just have to. For Yona's sake. He is doing this for her, he reminds himself, and this discipline will ground him, will keep her safe. It's not that he's afraid of taking things too far or of hurting her - he would never, her word is absolute, Hak would take no pleasure out of forcing her into anything - but more-so he's afraid of trudging too deeply into unmarked territory.

He is doing this for her. It's noble. It's just.

… He's going to leave a fucking hickey on her throat. There's nothing noble about it. It's different, to allow her to mark his neck with lipstick and claw his heart out of his chest with her bare hands, to be manhandled and tugged along in her schemes - throwing his own hand in the fire is another thing altogether. Yona is not someone to be touched lightly. She's different. The two of them - they're not the same. This should be something holy.

Yona sighs and closes her eyes. Hak moves mechanically, crooking his neck, and she exhales the moment his lips touch her skin. _Do not enjoy this, _he thinks, stubbornly. He is not allowed to enjoy this.

It's weird from this angle. He's so much taller than she is, and though Yona is short, all of the height she does have is in her legs - he feels like a weeping willow, the way he's hunched over her. The alternative is… decidedly not an option though, and so Hak does not push her down and straddle her, and instead sacrifices his neck in favor of not pinning the pretty little heiress to her mattress.

He takes a moment to center himself. Chews on her neck for a little, just to get a feel for his surroundings, very clinically, of course. Yona makes a little huff of a sigh and all of the blood in his body rushes south.

Right. He doesn't have very long.

It has to look good. Hak takes that sledgehammer from before to his heart instead and sucks hard, right at the crook of her neck, and the smell of her perfume is pretty and floral and isn't nearly enough to distract him from the sound of her gasp. Her fingers find purchase on him, and she sort of trembles beneath him before digging her hands into the fabric of his shirt, holding him by the shoulders as he marks her.

"... Another," she says, voice rough. "Hak."

The pieces of his heart drop into his stomach and Hak leaves at least three more, a clear trail from clavicle to the lobe of her ear. Make it good. Make it _good._

Her fingers twist up in the fabric of his shirt. If only he wasn't wearing it; he'd give anything to feel the dig of her nails, dragging down his shoulders, over the plains of his chest. To be marked by her, too, in a more permanent sense - to leave physical scars on him, ones visible to the naked eye, not like the ones she's inflicted on his heart. Or... the ones he's inflicted on his own heart, really.

It's not like he has a heart left. Not like he's ever really had one to begin with.

"_Hak_," Yona sighs again.

His blood is positively on _fire_. The breath he exhales is tremendously difficult and also far too close to her neck. She's the only thing he can smell - her perfume, the light, pretty scent of her shampoo, the faintest hint of the sweat he'd tasted on her skin.

Her hands are so tight around his shoulders now. "... Good? Does it… look…"

The next breath is somehow worse. Hak shuts his eyes and forces himself to center once more. Hell, he's not allowed to enjoy this. He thinks he needs another cold shower.

"... Yeah," he says, and feels more than a little gutted as he leans back to observe his work. Four dark bruises along her swan's neck. Clear evidence. It's unquestionably more damning than the lipstick stain on the collar of his shirt. That bottom bruise borders right on her breast bone, between the purposeful tears of her band tee.

Dazed, Hak leans back to sit on his knees, hands dropped to his sides. He's pinned there beneath the heat of Yona's stare.

"Good," she says, looking about as ravaged as he feels. "Thank you."

He hardly thinks he should be thanked for such a thing. These skinny jeans _hurt._ "Yona."

It makes her blush, just a little. Hak catches his folly and can't correct himself quick enough; Yona's lips quirk into a smile and then she's beaming at him, wide and far too thrilled, he thinks, for someone who's just been marked by the beast.

But no matter. There are more pressing matters at hand; for Yona, this hasn't been the devastating blip in judgement that it has for him. For Yona, there is still an endgame in sight, and dinner with her father is right around the corner. Or, um. Maybe down a few flights of stairs. She hops off of her bed and then turns to grab his arm and yank him to his feet, too.

Hak trips over his own leash on the way out the door.


	8. megaphone to my chest

It's only after she's seated herself from across her father that she realizes they'd never agreed on pet names.

It feels like such a useless detail at this point. Yona doubts calling her tank of a fake boyfriend _daddy _would be any more risqué than the hickies marking her throat. Part of her wonders if she does look the part, if she looks as thoroughly debauched as she presently feels, but then another part of her — the part that keeps her blushing and avoiding eye contact with said fake boyfriend — is too flustered to even look at her phone, lest she catch a glimpse of her reflection.

Stupid. Bad bitches don't get all twisted up over friends doing her favors. And that's exactly what the crescent shaped bruises on her neck are — considerable favors, ones Yona's not sure free reign to tease her will ever be payment enough for.

"I'm so pleased you were able to join us," Father says, passively, so passively. He is all manners and decorum, as if his daughter is not sitting at the dinner table with smudged eyeliner and a ripped t-shirt.

It pisses her off. What does she have to do, she wonders, to get the man to budge? This should be enough; Hak is tall and intimidating, and has none of the table manners Soo-Won has in spades - Hak has messy dark hair and a crooked grin, a denim jacket with patches and dirty thrifted boots, and everything else that should set warning bells off in the back of her father's mind. It shouldn't even be a question, Yona thinks, frustrated. And if his looming appearance wasn't enough, if his bored, sleepy expression at dinner with his girlfriend's father didn't seal the deal, then surely the hickies lining down her throat, like a trail leading beneath the worn neck of her top, should be enough.

Yona scrapes her fork down the center of her plate, frowning.

Father politely ignores her. "Would you like anything else to drink, Hak? We have a selection of wines. I'm sure I could have someone fetch one for you."

Hak grunts and chews instead of properly answering. Yona makes the mental note to give him treats later for being such a good bad boy.

"No?" Turning, Father waves down a servant. "Excuse me. Min-Su? Have you seen Yoon around by chance?"

Yona feels the corners of her mouth twitch. "I think he's studying for his exams."

Her father nods and then waves his hand at Min-Su, who has stopped tending the table long enough to fluster. "I was just wondering if he would want to join us. I know he's been working an awful lot lately and wouldn't want him falling ill because of exhaustion…"

From her side, Hak makes a sort of grunting sound again. He knocks her foot with his own, a sort of passive comfort, she supposes, to let her know that he's here, but it feels an awful lot like playing footsies, and the memory of his mouth on her throat is still a little too fresh to keep her from blushing at the contact.

His brow raises. Yona pinches her lips together and reaches over to set her hand on his. She can't be jumping every time Hak touches her, and especially not in front of the one person she's really trying to fool. All of this work will have been for nothing, haircut included.

"... I think being at dinner with the princess here would just exhaust him further," Hak says, and his smile crooks, just mischievously enough to negate all comfort he'd just attempted to lend her immediately.

"Hey!"

Hak grins like the gremlin man he is and leans back in his seat. His hand is still laying on the table, but he flips it to rest palm-up, and then he's got her fingers laced between his. "You're a walking headache."

He has her so properly caught in his web. Even if she wanted to, Yona knows she wouldn't be able to wriggle her way out of his grip without changing the angle and standing up or something - Hak has an iron grip, and if he wanted to, he could so easily hold the entirety of her wrist with just two fingers. "Yoon respects me," Yona says, sniffing, sitting taller.

"You pay him."

"We offered him a job. He didn't even want the pay," Yona huffs, leaning forward, and Hak's grinning only deepens into his features. He's having far too much fun with this. "He said it was 'improper' or an 'abuse of friendship' or something, but I didn't think it was right to let him struggle with a single dad when I had the option of supporting him. You know he'd never take a handout! It's not like I didn't try!"

"Sure, sure." Hak taps her foot again with the toe of his boot. "Doesn't mean you're not a headache."

"I'm- who's side are you on, _dear?_"

He blinks innocently. It doesn't look right on him; Hak can't play doe-eyed maiden when he's more than a foot taller than both of the other people at the table and also made of 110% grass-fed beef. "Yours," he says, in his most saccharine, mocking voice he surely can muster, "baby."

_Baby. _Yona feels her face burn, despite it all. Yeah, they definitely should have decided on pet names earlier. It's just a word, for goodness sake, and not really one she'd ever associated with something she'd like to be called. It feels… insulting, she guesses, in a way, and more than a little infantilizing - but she supposes that's the point, to make it uncomfortable for her father, first and foremost - and so Yona swallows her feelings, raises their joined hands and bites his pointer finger, right on the knuckle.

It's not like she planned to have a tug of war in front of her dad. But, well, if it makes him worry about her relationship, maybe she's been going about this all wrong.

"Cute," she mutters, then presses her lips to the back of his palm. The weight of Hak's stare is far heavier than she's prepared to shoulder, and so she doesn't, and pointedly ignores the heat in his eyes.

"... But they are friends," Father mutters thoughtfully, nodding to himself. "Yoon is a hard worker and internalizes many things, but I do think his affection for you is genuine, dear."

It wasn't even a question in her head. Why does he have such selective hearing? Yoon is perhaps the closest thing she has to a best friend.

… Well. A best friend who she hasn't roped into biting her neck, for the sake of her future marriage with someone else. Ugh. What an ugly web she's weaved. Can she even call Hak a best friend in good faith anymore? How many girls let their best friends chew on their neck for the sake of making their overprotective parent cry uncle?

It's just that she never thought it would go this far. When Yona had asked Hak to help her out, she hadn't thought it would go on for this long, either; her father is such a pushover with everything else, and in her youth, she was so rarely allowed to even go outside to play without an entourage of nannies to watch over her. And because she never thought it would go this far, Yona never had to really sit and think on the ramifications of necking with said best friend. Maybe best friend? Potential best friend who… also is willing to leave hickies all over her, for the sake of Soo-Won?

She rubs at her shoulder idly, then catches her father's eye and sets her plan into motion properly. No more pulling punches.

"Oh," she says, coyly, then smoothes her palm up her bruising throat, then fluffs her hair around her ear. "Sorry, Father, I didn't mean to- I mean, they're just burns," Yona says, all challenge, never once breaking eye contact. "From my curler."

It's a bluff. An obvious one. Yona's not sure she even owns a curler, and the mere prospect of it is laughable at best; her hair is naturally frizzy, and when it was longer, she'd had long, fluffy ringlets trailing behind her, tied up in a bow. Even now, with her hair chopped so shoddily, there's no need for her to ever use heat to give her hair texture - it's too short.

If he wants to ignore the elephant in the room then Yona will force his hand. _Address it, _she dares. _I'm lying right to your face. There's no way to avoid it. _

"You should be more careful," her father says.

"I just _really_ wanted curly hair," Yona replies, pure venom. She practically stares a hole into her father's face and refuses to look away. "I _like _it. I even like the way it feels."

Pause. For dramatic effect.

She smiles, perhaps a bit too wickedly. "On my _neck._"

Her father says nothing to that. What can he say, she thinks, other than to reprimand her? Check. Soo-Won would never be careless enough to mark her like this. For goodness sake, Yona doubts Soo-Won has the ability to be so uncouth. Romance with him is clean, hand-holding and sweet whispered words, kisses to her forehead and secret smiles.

So she fluffs her hair again and then manages to slip her hand from Hak's while he's busy glancing between father and daughter uncomfortably. Slides her hand up his arm and then feels his bicep up, very purposefully, and if it's a show he wants, a show her darling daddy will get. In her sweetest, most spoiled voice, Yona looks to her brickhouse of a boyfriend and asks, "Don't you agree?"

Hak's face betrays nothing. His eyes flicker, just for a moment, between hers and then her neck, where she knows he'd been staring earlier, while groggy and sleep drunk.

Checkmate.

"... It's okay," he says, and there's a grit there, one that she vaguely recognizes but can't quite place. "If you're into that kind of thing."

"That kind of thing!" she whines. It's fine; she will revert back to Yona of thirteen, who pouted and tugged and bellyached until she got what she wanted. "You're so meaaaaaan, Hak! You seemed to like it so much earlier, when we were in my room…"

No sane father would let this go unchecked. Surely something has to give now. She takes a break from attempting to eyefuck Hak to inspect the damage. Surely, surely, by now he's budged-

Father smiles, carefully measured. "If it makes you happy, I love anything that you do with your hair."

There's no way. "I- But-"

"I'm just happy to see you happy with the state of it. You've always had such beautiful hair, Yona," her father says, and he even looks a little misty eyed over it. "If cutting it and curling it makes you happy, then I'm happy. I think it looks beautiful."

He has to be kidding. She's actually speechless.

Hak chokes back a laugh. He barely stuffs it back behind a mouthful of food as he returns to stuffing his face and trying to stay out of the line of fire.

"... You think my hair looks nice," Yona repeats, feeling a little like her mouth is full of cotton, like she's back in her room post-nap and Hak is shaking her awake, all over again. "Like this."

"Of course!"

"Because I curled my curly hair."

Il the Coward toasts to it. Wipes his eyes and everything. "My beautiful daughter."

.

He's a fool. "He's a fool."

Yoon clicks his tongue and tucks his pencil behind his ear. When he realizes that this problem won't just go away, and that Yona is here to stay and beg for advice, he relents and slips his bookmark into his textbook before shutting it. "That's not a very nice thing to say about your father."

"He thinks I curl my hair!" Yona wails and buries her face in her knees. "He's literally known me my whole life. Yoon, I came out of the womb with curls. I had a full head of hair!"

"How often does he go through photo albums?"

"I don't think his memory is that bad!" At least, she hopes not. And even so, Yona knows for her fact that her dad is the nostalgic type; as a child, she'd often curl up in the study with her father and look through old family albums, pointing at pictures of her mother and giggling when he inevitably began tearing up and reminiscing. "Yoon, he's my father. He knows what I look like."

He sighs and drags a hand down his face. "Why do I get myself involved in these things."

"Because you're beautiful and thoughtful?"

"Flattery will get you everywhere in life." Yoon sets his books aside and then sits on the floor next to her. Instinctually, she leans toward him and rests her head on his shoulder. "Men are stupid. He might just not realize that your hair will curl no matter the length. Or… that it will curl more with less weight on it."

"So he's a fool."

"I didn't say that," Yoon says, then gives up on being cranky and leans his head against hers, too.

But he's thinking it. His feelings on the rich are not a secret - Yona knows that he doesn't particularly like her father, and knows he doesn't try to keep that hidden from her. If anything, he's just civil enough to entertain her problems and try to offer her third-party solutions, and keeps quiet about the things he knows she's sensitive about. Like her family. Namely her dad, the only blood relative she truly has left.

It's fine. She can read between his lines well enough. Yona closes her eyes and moans. "I just wanted to make him mad. I wanted him to see these stupid hickies on my neck and throw a fit. I didn't think it would be this hard!"

"... Yeah, uh. I wasn't going to ask."

Well, he's going to hear about it anyway. Sorry Yoon. "If your daughter sat at dinner and practically threw herself at who you think is her boyfriend, looking like… like _this,_ you'd be upset, right? You'd be concerned?"

"You have a boyfriend?"

He actually sounds genuinely surprised. Yona thinks she should probably be a little offended at it. "... Kind of. No. But he doesn't need to know that."

There's a pause, and then, "Oh, Yona. You _didn't._"

She's defensive before she even has the chance to catch up to whatever he's on about. "I didn't- hey!" Yoon leans back to stare disapprovingly at her and Yona feels her ears burn. "Don't look at me like that! You don't even know what's happening!"

"You put Hak up to this, didn't you." It's not phrased like a question. Things with Yoon often aren't. She might be fine at reading between his lines, but Yoon is a damn bibliophile, and an expert at making _her _feel like a fool. "That's why he's been so gloomy lately. You're making him date you to make your dad upset."

Well, when he puts it _that _way, it sounds terrible. Yona's shoulders fall and she buries her face back into her knees. "He agreed to it, you know. I didn't bully him into anything."

But it sounds weak, like she doesn't believe it herself. And she really thinks she believes it! How many times has she tried to stress that they should only do things if they make him comfortable too? It feels like she checks in all the time, and tries to amend the rules as she sees fit, and… and when she'd met Ayame, and had been so sure that there was something between them, she was so willing to call it off. Her own happily ever after wasn't worth the assassination of Hak's, and it's never been.

"Yona." Yoon's voice is bordering maternal.

It makes her curl in on herself, so guiltily. "He just looks the part, okay! And I didn't want to ask anyone else! I don't trust anyone else the way I trust Hak not to take advantage of things."

Yoon doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. His silence is just as disapproving as a swat to the head would be.

"We set rules! I'm not just… you know…! He offered this time! I didn't like, strong arm him into touching me or anything, that would just be-"

"Oh," Yoon says, and his voice is so dry at this point Yona has to look up at him, "I'm not worried about him not wanting to touch you."

Never mind. She can't read between his lines very well at all. Yona opens and closes her mouth cluelessly at him for about two minutes, until he takes pity on her and just throws that whole tangent out the window.

"Why in the world are you trying to make your father upset? He gives you everything you want. I don't understand."

Yona laughs humorlessly and stretches her legs out in front of her. Well, now she really does sound selfish and spoiled, doesn't she. It's so close to the truth that it actually stings a little, and she stares at her feet instead of facing Yoon's judgement, because she is her father's daughter, apparently, and also a coward. "... Not everything."

"_Yona."_

"I just don't think anyone else should have a say in who I can and can't marry. I think that strips me of agency."

He's silent. It doesn't feel as heavy this time, not like before.

The relenting scrutiny gives her the courage she needs. Yona takes a cleansing breath and squares herself. "Is that selfish of me? To still want Soo-Won even when my father says no? I know he means well, and I know I'm really… kind of going about this wrong, and it's super backwards, to try and parade someone who's supposed to be worse in front of him, because I don't think I need permission to marry anyone-"

"But," Yoon says.

"But I don't want to have to cut my dad off just to marry the person I love." It feels weird, saying it out loud. Her father is a fool and a coward, but he's still her dad, she supposes - and those misplaced feelings of frustration don't overwrite the years he's spent raising her, doting on her. Yona purses her lips. "Am I being a brat?"

Her best friend makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. "Do you want an answer to that?"

She trusts Yoon to give it to her straight, so she says, "Yes."

"I think your heart is in the right place," he says, and it's kind of him, to spare her feelings in any capacity. "But I think it's not fair to Hak to ask him to be _himself _and then act like he's a delinquent or something."

"That's not what I think at all!"

"I know," Yoon says, very calmly. He reaches toward her and lovingly flicks her on her shoulder. "But that doesn't mean it's fair to him. Hak does a lot for you, you know, and he doesn't ask for much in return. I know you'd never intentionally hurt him, but-"

_I know you'd never intentionally hurt him_. Something drops into her gut, hot and uncomfortable, and Yona feels a little like she's been gutted, right then and there. Of course she's never- she'd asked, hadn't she? So many times. And it's not like she even intended for things to go this far anyway! Really, when she'd asked for his help, she thought her father would've given in already, that it would have taken a few days, tops, to get him to crack. And the implication that she thinks he's second-rate…!

Yona can't hide from this one. She refuses to. Sitting back, she presses her hands into her lap and says, with all the grit she can muster, "I'm hurting him."

"... Hak would never ask for help."

She knows that. For as strong as he is, he's stubborn in equal parts; Hak would sooner swallow his own foot than admit to weakness, and certainly not in front of her - he has his pride as a man, she supposes, but also is one of the most emotionally constipated people she knows. And it's not like she's unaware of that, because for as long as she's known him, Hak has always worn his mask. She can see the cracks in it, sometimes, when his smile pulls a little tighter, when his laugh is just a shade more dry, and the thought that she might be contributing to it makes her feel sick.

"I really didn't ask him to give me hickies," she says, and her eyes are burning. Stupid. Like she has any right to be the one to cry over this.

That gets Yoon to laugh though. "Even if you did, I don't think he'd be upset with you over that."

Yeah. Yona still doesn't know what he means. Maybe she's not as good at reading people as she thought. Rubbing her eyes, she stands and then offers a hand to Yoon, and then she's pulling him to his feet, too.

"I just think it's a bad idea." Yoon pauses, then squints at her. "No. Never mind. It _is_ a bad idea. For you and for Hak."

.

She can't hide from this.

Mundok answers the door and smiles so openly that it only serves to make her feel worse. Tae-Yeon is in tow, peeking from between around his grandfather's hip, and that heat in her gut tightens like a vice, rapidly climbing its way to her heart.

"Yona," Mundok says, full of warmth. "What a surprise."

"Hi, sorry, I know it's late." She tugs on her jacket, fiddling nervously. "Is. Um. Is Hak home? Can I talk to him?"

Her nerves betray her. Mundok seems to be able to read the room far better than she can, apparently, and ushers her in without another word. The door shuts behind her and then she's inside, staring at numerous framed pictures of Hak in little league, still taller than the rest of the boys his age. It almost makes her smile.

Almost. She has a mission, after all. She can't hide from this.

"He's in his room," Mundok says, far too trustingly. It sort of makes her want to cry. Isn't she the one with nefarious intentions here? Isn't anyone worried that they're going to mess around and have sex or something? "I've told him to turn down the amp nearly three times but you know how that boy is. Ungrateful. Stubborn."

"A rock star!" Tae-Yeon says gleefully.

He's something, alright. Yona musters as big of a smile as she can and says, "Thank you. Are you sure I'm not intruding?"

"You're like family," Mundok says. That vice digs its talons into her heart and Yona almost takes a step back, surprised at the weight of it all, surprised at how easily he admits to it. "It's never an intrusion if it's you. Besides. I consider myself lucky that you're such good friends with Hak."

_You shouldn't, _she thinks, as she passes through the hall and lingers in front of his bedroom door. The hickies, so neatly hidden beneath the neck of (Hak's) jacket sort of hurt now. She doesn't even know if hickies are supposed to hurt or if the guilt of it all is finally setting in and her brain is trying to cannibalize itself.

The cluelessness pisses her off. She's so stupid. And selfish! And the worst kind of person - the goal has never been to get Soo-Won at all costs. There are some things that just aren't negotiable, and Hak's comfort is one of them. Hak's comfort is the main one.

So Yona knocks. Twice. Three times. When she realizes Hak probably assumes it's just his grandfather telling him to keep it down, she slams her fist against the door and shouts his name.

That gets him to stop. The music stops very suddenly, chord cracking, and then there's shuffling on the other end of the door. "What-"

It opens. Because Yona hadn't been prepared, she ends up eye level with his bare chest, and tries not to gawk, really, but it's sudden, all of this naked skin in front of her, and instinctively she looks down, instead of where his eyes actually are.

Black sweatpants. Of course. But they're low slung, and Hak's hip bones are surprisingly sharp, and Yona's brain dissolves into tv static for about half a minute before she gets a hold of herself and jolts so far she nearly knocks herself out on the wall behind her. What? What?

Hak seems to think the same thing, and grabs her by the shoulder before she has the chance to finally put herself out of her misery and concuss herself. "Easy. What're you doing here?"

This whole thing has her so messed up. She's not supposed to be gawking at him like he's a piece of meat or something - he's Hak, the same guy who bullies her for being just half an inch shy of 5'2'' and reminds her daily that there's not a graceful bone in her body. He's Hak, almost best friend, paid muscle, big brother figure. What his body looks like is irrelevant to her, and has always been irrelevant to her, and should remain irrelevant to her. It's not Hak she's trying to marry!

The thought is sobering. Has she ever… really entertained that? Why should she? Where did that even come from?

"I'm sorry!" she squeaks, panicking. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to disrespect you!"

"What."

"I don't think you're bad or dangerous or, like, the bottom of the barrel or anything!" Yona doesn't know what to do with her hands, so she holds them at her sides, fists clenched, trembling. The nails digging into her palms grounds her, and then she looks him in the eyes properly, momentarily steeled. "I didn't ask for your help because I thought you'd scare my dad. I mean! I did, but not because I thought you're undateable or terrible or anything-"

Hak yanks her into his room and shuts the door before she can blurt anything else. Clicks the lock, too.

Heat rises to her face before she has the chance to really think about his motives. "Um!"

"Mundok will never let me live this down," he says, far too calmly. Presently, Yona feels like a wreck, like she's just eaten something spicy and now her body is trying to stabilize itself while also dealing with being set ablaze. "What're you on about now?"

"I talked to Yoon." His shoulders sort of… bunch up. "He said… I mean, I didn't need him to guilt trip me or anything, I already thought…!"

Hak pushes a hand through his hair and sighs. Drops to sit on the edge of his bed so that he's eye level with her and says, very deadpan, "Whatever Yoon told you, ignore it."

No. "No! No, that's not fair to you!"

"I never asked you to be fair to me."

"That doesn't mean I shouldn't still think of your feelings!" Yona finds her groove and reminds herself of who she is - the proud daughter of Il, heiress to the Kouka companies, someone who should hold herself accountable and true, right to the bitter end. "You- I don't want you to feel like you have to… I don't know, that you have to stick around with me and do this just because I asked you to. If it's too much, or if you think I'm being selfish or stupid, or if you feel degaded…! We can stop. We can always stop."

Hak raises a brow and leans back, hands flat on his bed, supporting his weight. "What happened to the girl who cut off all her hair in a moment of righteous fury?"

"She's still here. She just values your happiness over her marriage." Well. That sounds a little suspicious. Blushes more deeply, she adds, "Not! Um! That you're ruining my marriage or anything!"

He looks like he's tasted something sour. "I'm not unhappy."

"That is the least happy face I've ever seen you make."

"I'm sure you've seen unhappier." Hak cracks his neck and says, "You're worrying about nothing. I'm fine."

Stubborn. She should've known he'd try to thwart her apology. Selfless, martyr Hak, right to the end. Yona blushes all the way to her ears and then marches until she's standing between his legs, nearly nose-to-nose with him, and takes his stupid face in her hands and holds him there, so that he can't run away from this. Something has to give, she thinks, and something - be it her father, or her, or Hak's stupid pride - is right on the horizon, she can feel it. There's a change in the air, like she can smell the rain before the storm.

Or maybe it's just Hak's rapt attention. He stares at her so pointedly Yona thinks she might just die. That tv static is back, and she tries not to think about the stubble beneath her hand, or the sharpness of his jaw, or why any of that even matters right now at all. It doesn't. It shouldn't. She's being weird. _She's_ the one making this weird.

"You can call this off," she says. "Anytime. I won't be upset with you. You won't be letting me down."

"Idiot." Hak scoffs. "How many times do I have to tell you that it doesn't matter? I wouldn't have made it this far if you hurt my feelings. How weak do you think I am?"

It's not about weakness! Yona squeezes his face between her hands. "You are so insufferable sometimes, I swear. I'm trying to give you an out! I'm apologizing!"

"And you have nothing to apologize for," he says, and the seriousness of it takes her aback. "I'm the one who should be apologizing."

"_You _have nothing to apologize for!"

The look he fits her with is deafening. "Your neck."

Right. It's not like she wants to remain her natural coloring anyway. It's fine, she can just blush for the rest of her life, whatever. Stupid Hak! "That's…! It was a good idea and you know it. It should have worked."

"But it didn't. So it was for nothing." Hak heaves a breath and then gently swats her hands away from his face. Looking away, he says, "It should've been something reserved for Soo-Won. It wasn't my place."

But she gave him permission. God, she wants to shove him back against the mattress and shake him or something. How can any one man be so stubborn? He hasn't forced her into anything. If at all, she's the one putting him through the ringer with this whole deal. Between the two of them, she's the one actually benefiting from this. What does Hak get for forcing himself to act like he's attracted to her? A free pass to tease her? He could take that even without her permission, and he must know it; that's their relationship. It's always been their relationship. He playfully ribs her and she pouts and whines and then they eat ice cream or something. It's how they've always worked.

"I told you it was okay," Yona says, frowning.

"And I told you this was okay. So stop acting like you've done something wrong. It's freaking me out."

But he doesn't push her away. She might not be holding his face still anymore, but she's still standing between his knees, and he's still shirtless, and Yona's still having a hard time ignoring _that, _for whatever reason. Blinking balefully, she tries to look ...elsewhere, but it's difficult, because everywhere she looks she's reminded of him - and she supposes that makes sense, because this is his bedroom she's in, but it's still… weird. The whole feeling is weird.

This isn't how today was supposed to go. Yona tries to scrub the ick from her face. "I did do something wrong, though!"

"You didn't. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"We can call this off. Really! It's not working anyway, so…! So let's make a deadline. Would that make you feel better?"

Hak groans. "Would it make _you_ feel better?"

Yes. Probably. The sooner she puts an end to this, the sooner she can go back to daydreaming about Soo-Won's baby blue eyes and not staring very blatantly at Hak's torso like he's carved from stone or something. If hickies won't convince her father of the worst, Yona wonders, what will? What could possibly force his hand more than his only daughter being defiled? By anyone?

"... Father's party," she says, hands still pressed to her face. She doesn't dare peek between her fingers. "Next weekend. So many of his business partners will be attending, and if… if that doesn't do it, I don't know what will."

"Okay."

When he doesn't say anything more, she sucks in a trembling breath and then drops her hands from her face. He's staring at her, like maybe she's smudged her eyeliner all over her face and looks like a fool or something, but she doesn't allow it much thought. Next weekend, she thinks, and allows the finality of it to comfort her. Or… at least, she allows the finality of it to soothe the burn in her chest, the sharp grip her guilt has on her lungs.

Stupid. How selfish does she have to be, to cry in the face of the man she's apologizing to? Maybe she's not as grown up as she thought she was. It's frustrating. It makes her want to cry more.

Yona slaps at her cheeks twice. Then Hak grabs her by her wrists and says, "Cut that out."

"But-"

"You don't have to apologize for anything," he says, and he looks almost sad, like there's distance in his eyes that hadn't been there before. Earlier today they'd seemed so clear. Earlier today, when he'd leaned back to inspect his work, there'd been a rawness there, the clearest blue.

She sort of misses it. And she's not sure if she should or not. Is it wrong to want to know him? Does she have that right anymore?

"I mean it." His hands are so warm, and hers sort of feel clammy, even though he's not holding them. "Stop thinking you're taking advantage of me or something. Yoon wasn't there."

"But…"

"I _mean _it," Hak says again, more insistently this time. "Please stop crying."

She makes for an effort to touch her face. He allows it, and her fingertips come back damp. Shoot. She really… didn't want to cry at him. That's not what she came here for at all.

"... Give Soo-Won a call." His grip on her wrists tightens, barely noticeable. It's not uncomfortable, and it's not threatening - more like it serves as a reminder that he's here, and Yona shouldn't be so comforted by it. "Talk it over with him. When was the last time the two of you had a conversation?"

"... We texted… earlier…" But the sound of his voice would help, certainly. Hopefully. Something has to help her sort her brain out, and if that something isn't Soo-Won, sweetly offering his thoughts, well, then Yona doesn't know what will.

Maybe she's just doomed. Maybe this is her life now, feeling sick to her stomach with guilt and not knowing how to sort it out.

Hak watches her. She can feel his eyes on her, her eyes, her nose, her jaw. He dodges looking at her throat, and then stares at her shoulder again, and that tightness in her feels like it might pop, all at once. The feeling is suffocating, and consuming, and all she can think of is the brand she wears now on her skin, one she can't scrub off, and how it'd felt to receive them, and then she's spiraling all over again.

What were they talking about again? Oh. Calling Soo-Won.

Soo-Won, who all of this heartache is for. The man who'd given her a promise ring. Right. Of course. Who else would Yona fight for?

"Call him," Hak says.

Yona finds herself nodding. "Yeah. Okay."

"I'll walk you home."

"No, no, um. No, that's okay. I had my driver bring me." Being alone with Hak in the dark might actually be the thing that kills her. Hak looks everywhere but her throat again and finally settles on her eyes. If she tried, Yona thinks she could actually cut through the tension with a knife, and hates herself for making this so weird.

He raises a brow. "... You did?"

"Did you think I walked here by myself?"

"You sneak out all the time. I used to get SOS calls nightly from you."

"And yet you still didn't hear me knocking."

He snorts and then gently knocks at her forehead with his fist. "Smartass."

That's more like it. That's the Hak she knows and loves; some damn normalcy is appreciated, and Yona finds it in her to smile, however shakily, and then he's wearing his half-smile too, however crookedly. And that's fine. If they can go through the motions, surely they'll find their groove again, and things will go back to normal in no time.

They have to. She can't think about the alternative. If it's a future with Soo-Won and no Hak, then Yona doesn't want it. Her happiness isn't comparable to his, and that happiness wouldn't be complete with him, anyway. Even if it's different, in the way she loves the two of them - even if Soo-Won walks her down the aisle and Hak brings her to rock shows and carts her around in his beat-up car - they're both important people, important touchstones in her life.

It's why she can't mess this up. Yona will stop making this weird, even if it kills her. For Hak's sake.


	9. 9

The week seems to pass quickly.

Part of it is because Hak keeps himself busy; between rugby practice and his part-time job at the record shop, there isn't a lot of time left in between for playing lapdog. He tells himself it's because he's kept busy, and not because he'd went out of his way to pick up a few extra shifts -- and certainly not because Hak's started going on morning and evening runs around the block in order to fill out his schedule. And even if that were the case, and he is suddenly the world's biggest coward, it's not like he's left himself enough time to really sit and think on it. Hak is lazy at his core, and would rather nap through his afternoon break than sort out feelings or intentions. Gross.

Monday becomes Tuesday without fuss. He answers Yona's frantic texts about Soo-Won with minimal heartache. He sleeps through his alarm on Wednesday, but makes up for it by jogging an extra half-mile before hauling ass to practice.

By the afternoon, he's sorted himself out. Work is slow, so Hak passes the time by sorting through misplaced records and cassette tapes until his lunch break. It's just another day, just another six hours of customer service, and he's already mentally back home in bed when the door jingles and Yoon's marching up to the counter with purpose.

Hak does not move from his seat. "We don't carry textbooks here. Try the bookstore across the street."

"Very funny, Thunder Beast." Yoon, true to form, doesn't budge, and instead stands there, arms folded across his chest, looking every bit the mother he claims he isn't. "I'm not here for class."

"I'm very busy," Hak says.

"Busy being stupid, maybe." Ouch. Well, he's not wrong. Hak feigns nothing and continues re-alphabetizing the rock records instead of making proper eye contact. When he doesn't move, Yoon powers on. "This is an intervention."

Yeah, this is the last thing he needs right now. So much for having sorted himself out. "Don't you have exams to study for?"

"Stop trying to change the subject."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Yoon sighs and then leans forward, planting his hands down on the counter. "I never took you for a coward."

Harsh. He resents that. He's no coward — if he were a coward, he'd have backed out of this mess he's gotten himself in already and played the victim. Hak would argue that it takes more courage to carry on, even with all of the heartache attached, even with all of the guilt that continually stews in his gut every time he thinks about Yona and the way she'd sighed when he'd pressed his teeth against her throat.

Which he shouldn't be thinking about now. He should think about literally anything else. Hak shakes his head and raises a brow instead at Yoon, who's begun standing on his toes in order to look more imposing.

It won't work. Hak has more than a head on him in height. "I get enough lecturing from the princess, thanks. At least don't force me to endure it while I'm on the clock."

"I can't get ahold of you otherwise!" Yoon narrows his eyes. "If I have to hold you hostage at work I will. Don't think I'm above it."

"I thought we could bond over being working class."

"Stupid martyr." Yoon huffs and stands back, arms crossed again. "Break up with her. Or call it off! It's not like you two are actually dating anyway, and you know it's not a good idea—"

Hak busies himself with re-realphabetizing. "Don't think that's your decision to make, actually."

"You're so emotionally constipated, I swear." Yoon plops his book bag on the counter and makes it very clear that he's not going anywhere. "Look. Yona might be denser than a sack of hammers but I'm not. You're not fooling me, you know. Pretending to date the girl that you're in love with is sick and it's hurting you. Stop trying to pretend like it's not."

Hak barks out a self-deprecating laugh. "I have higher standards than that."

"You have been following her around like a lovesick puppy for as long as I've known the two of you. And I've known you for years." At some point Hak must've looked up, because now he's staring Yoon in the eye, and he's pointing a finger accusingly at him. "Yona might be too blind to see it but I'm not. And she might be stupid but she still cares, and I can only do so much damage control before something really bad happens."

"It's under control," Hak says, jaw set.

The back of his neck feels hot, but whatever, it's nothing he can't handle. It's summer, after all. Summer, and he's spent the entire week avoiding his so-called girlfriend in favor of running miles by himself and helping Mundok repair the back fence. It's just a little bit of sunburn.

"It's not right," Yoon huffs. "You know it's not right! You might be okay with sacrificing your feelings for her sake but she's not, you stupid bear!"

"Bear."

"I've met animals more emotionally responsible than you are." Mother is so harsh. Hak doesn't bow beneath his scolding. "Break up with her!"

This is annoying. Hak takes his leave from behind the counter and takes the records he's alphabetized about five times now with him, Yoon hot on his trail. "I said it's under control. You worry too much."

"It will destroy her if she breaks your heart," Yoon threatens. "Even if it doesn't matter to you what happens to your feelings, it matters a lot to her. You have to know that."

Of course he does. It's why the guilt keeps him from sleeping at night. It's why he can't stop feeling filthy for wanting her under him, or on top of him, or for staring longingly at the pale, freckled length of her neck. If it was as simple as merely breaking up with her then he wouldn't be in this situation right now. Does Yoon seriously think he doesn't know Yona's feelings? That he's not intimately aware of them at any given moment?

Hak sorts a few records in place and doesn't say anything.

"... She's been calling me every day, you know, worried about you. When was the last time you contacted her?"

Does it matter? "I told her to talk to Soo-Won."

Yoon sighs and rubs his temples. "So you're handing the problem off to him now?"

Hak grits his teeth. "She's not a problem."

"This whole situation is a problem!" Yoon tugs on his sleeve. "Hak, listen to me. The longer you let this go on, the worse it's going to be. Don't you still want to be her friend when this all is over?"

What kind of stupid question is that? He scoffs. He'll be Yona's friend for as long as she'll allow him, heartache be damned. As if he's pathetic enough to put his feelings on her, as if he'd ever force her to make a choice like that. "Don't see how that's relevant."

"Of course you don't!" He throws his hands up. "You're so determined to die with your stupid crush that you don't see anything wrong with letting her take advantage of you. And she barely even knows she's doing it!"

Yona isn't taking advantage of anyone. If anything, it's the other way around; Hak lets her think this is all pretend — because for her it is, this so-called romance, and she plays dress up and dances at rock shows and trends on twitter — and then he sucks on her neck and resists the urge to feel her up. He's the one taking advantage. And that's why he can't see her right now.

"I'm not in love with her," — Yoon barks out a laugh — "so cool it. I'm doing a favor for a friend. Didn't think that was a bad thing."

"I take it back. You're both stupid!"

Maybe so. But he's not going to ruin this for her. It's the first time Yona has fought so valiantly for her agency, has stuck her neck out for something that she wants and put the work in for it, too — and this means something to her, romance and happily ever after, and, more importantly, proving herself to her father — and Hak won't be the one to take that fight away. Son Hak is no coward. If nothing else can be said about him, he thinks, he's at least a ride or die. So what if he chooses die?

Hak sighs and turns to face Yoon. The blond kid's got his brows knitted together so tightly that there's a wrinkle there, and he's much too young to be so stressed; Hak rustles his hair and pushes past him, expression neutral.

"At least talk to her, will you?"

"She put an end date on it," Hak says. "Relax. After this week everything will go back to normal."

Yoon's laugh is foreboding. "Things have never been normal between you two. And they're not about to start now."

.

After work on Thursday is his rugby game.

Stretching in the burning sun is almost terrible enough to distract him from his guilt. Hak lays on the grass and stares into the bright light overhead and wonders if laying here long enough would prove enough to kill him. Or at least spontaneously combust. That much would be enough. Catching fire and simmering until he's nothing but bones and charred guts would be punishment enough. Maybe that way he'd feel sorted out.

"Hak!" Kija calls, jogging over. "Hak!"

Hak makes no attempt to move. He keeps laying there and squinting into the sun.

"I'll help you stretch your quads," he says, then drops down to his knees beside him. Kija takes Hak's left leg in his hand and begins folding it up to his chest — as if he needs the help, Hak thinks, amused, but without laughing. "And hold!"

His enthusiasm is almost as melting as the sun. Hak exhales and closes his eyes. "You hold."

"You're heavy. Hold yourself. Don't get lazy! We need you to be on your A game if we want to win this!"

"Ha. Begging for help now?"

Hak doesn't need to open his eyes to know Kija's blushing red. "I would never belittle myself in such a way."

He's too easy to tease. It makes the weight in his chest a little lighter, just barely.

But Hak will take what he can get. "Since when are you a team player?"

"I have always known the importance of teamwork!" Kija says, very insistently. He presses more firmly down on his leg and Hak chuffs, feeling the tight muscles in his thighs pull. Perhaps it's not in his best interest to heckle the guy while he's got him effectively pinned. "It's you who has a hard time swallowing your pride and putting in an honest effort!"

"Not everyone likes to burn out in the first half," wheezes Hak.

"I have never burnt out! Not once! It's honorable to give every game my all."

It's rugby, for goodness sake. Honor has nothing to do with it. "It's a game," Hak says, pushing back. Kija relents, and then he's pressing Hak's right leg to his chest instead, and the burn begins all over again. "It's meant to be fun."

"I have fun," Kija says sincerely. "I love winning."

Spoken like a true try hard. He might tease him further, if cries of his name weren't sounding from the gaggle of a crowd that's begun to gather around the stands. Hak thinks nothing of it at first — he's always had fans, that much is normal — but since branding himself Yona's boytoy, there's been an influx of strangers showing up at his games, in hopes to catch a glimpse of the guy who's all over her instagram account.

And, well, he supposes he can't fault them for it. It's a little annoying, sure — Hak doubts they know anything about the sport, and they're certainly not quiet about the reason they're here (to oogle him, mostly) — but in the end it probably means they're doing a good job. If people believe they're an item, no matter the circumstances, then all of this has been worth it.

Besides. There are worse fates than being Yona's assumed booty call. He's heard enough whispered-giggles about his ass the past few weeks to put the pieces together.

Kija lets him go and yanks Hak up to sit. "Oh," he says. "You have visitors."

"Great," Hak sighs, not bothering to look over.

"They're coming over."

"What."

"Oh!" Kija says, suddenly very bright. "Yona! Hello! Forgive me, I didn't recognize you right away, what with all of the…"

"The black?" A familiar giggle makes something in his gut drop. "Yeah, sorry! But it looks good, right?"

"Of course! You look lovely in everything."

Hak's still staring at his cleats, and that burning along the back of his neck is back again. Well. It's prime time for the sun to burn him. He only wonders if he'd had the foresight to bring aloe with him this time.

"Hi, Hak," she says, finally, shyly.

It makes him burn all the more. Fuck it. There's no balm for this ache. Hak scrubs at his face and then dumps his entire water bottle over his head. "Princess."

He can practically see her expression — lips pressed together, brows furrowed, pouting, pouting. It's too cute. "We talked about this."

Yeah. They had. But he also doesn't have a great excuse as to why he's been ignoring her calls the past few days, and sort of feels like burying himself in the field instead of facing her light. He only hopes she's wearing something with a high neck — but why would she, he thinks, almost expressively, when the whole goal had been to show the damn hickies off? There's nothing about this that's meant to be private. Everything they do is for show.

Christ. Now he's thirsty. Oh well. "How'd you know I'd be here?"

"I asked Mundok! Tae-Yeon was really excited that I asked to come along." She drops to sit beside him, and then she's sitting in the grass, too, and he tries not to stare at her bare knees, so pale against the green of the lawn. "I hope that's okay?"

There's no reason why it shouldn't be. Hak doesn't blush, so instead he ponders sunscreen and says, "I didn't think you'd be interested in sports."

"I'm interested if you're playing," she says, as if it's not a shot directly to his heart. "Besides! You spend so much time supporting me, it's only fair."

"You don't owe me anything," Hak says, staring at his lap, his shorts, the ant crawling its way up Yona's pale thigh. Fuck. He's looking at her.

He's looking at her. Looks her over, in her black cut-off shorts and laced-up tank top, and those hickies have certainly bruised, a stark purple, in the exact shape of his mouth. She wears them so proudly, so openly, as if there's no shame in what he's done to her. It makes him lightheaded.

Or maybe that's the heat. The heat's getting to him. This shouldn't be so weird. It's just Yona. Yona, who he's sworn to help. Yona, on her pretty pedestal, smiling nervously at him, tucking a curl behind her ear, and man, does her hair look like fire in the daylight.

"I know," she says then, and there's an honesty in her eyes, a vulnerability that makes him almost sort of angry. "But I wanted to."

He can't live like this. He has a role to play, after all, and they have an audience — it would be foolish to squander the opportunity and she must know that. This burning in his chest, this rawness he feels, like his stupid heart has been grated to pieces the longer he looks at her, all of it — he's the one making up stories in his head. Son Hak knows his place. Knows what he's about.

Most importantly, he knows Yona's place, too. Hak knows what this is all about, so he swallows the stupid things, like attraction and feelings and embraces the rational. Hak the goth pushes her down onto the grass and leans over her, expression grim.

She gasps as she falls back. Stares up at him with those wide eyes and threatens to undo all of the mental work he's done the past few days, just like that.

"Gotta make it look good, right?"

She blinks once, twice. "I didn't mean to make this harder for you."

Stupid. What, does she think he's weak or something? Hak is the farthest thing; he lifts weights and buries his feelings and scares the internet with his looming height.

It makes him laugh. "It'd be stupid to waste an opportunity, right?"

The way she's looking up at him is more damning than the sunlight. Hak thinks he might just catch ablaze for real this time. "Don't you have stretching to do?"

"I'm far more flexible than you'll ever be."

"Duh. I'm not an athlete." But she looks him over, then, and Hak feels naked, as her eyes scan over his shoulders, his chest. He's glad he's still wearing his jersey. Doesn't really know what he'll do with the feeling, though, so he swallows it, and attraction turns over in its grave, disturbed. "... I don't need to stretch."

"Wanna learn?"

She laughs and something lifts off of his chest. "You'll crush me."

He'd never dream of it. "You brought Tae-Yeon."

"And Mundok."

Well. Maybe he should have thought this through a little more thoroughly. Oh well. The old man will understand, if he explains it thoroughly enough — and if not who cares, Hak thinks, backing off and offering the pretty princess a hand, so that she may sit on the throne she so deserves. Who cares. The more people who think he's dirtying her the better. That's the whole point.

"Sorry," she says, and Hak drip-dries in the field like the fucking fool he is. Yona stares at his damp hair. "I can get you some more water if you want?"

"Eh. Tell the old man to buy me some."

"I have legs," Yona says, then stands, dusting off her lap. "Good luck! I can't wait to see the game. I don't really know the rules, but Tae-Yeon is really excited to explain it to me, so…"

Hak flicks that ant off of her thigh finally. Tries not to think about being eye-level with her legs and says, "I'll try to put on a suitable show then."

"Just have fun!" Yona insists, then pushes his damp hair back, and yeah, there's nothing more bright in this world than this girl and her blaze of hair. No amount of aloe will ever be able to soothe this burn. Her thumb rests on his forehead and then she leans down to press a kiss there.

.

"I'm not ten, you know. I don't need ice cream after the big game."

The sight of Yona blushing is so innocently nostalgic that Hak actually takes comfort in it. If he really tries, he could pretend that this is their normal, their usual — Yona pinks while he teases her for treating him like a child, but she still swipes her daddy's credit card without second thought, and they fall into this easy rhythm. It's comfortable, when he's playing the part she'd assigned him long ago. Hak knows how to be the big brother. He's been doing it for most of his life.

"Don't complain when you've got it all over your face," she scolds, but there's still a delightful heat rising in her cheeks, and maybe she's been burnt by the sun, too. What a pair they make. "Use a napkin!"

"Yes ma'am."

"And don't call me that! It makes me feel old."

Ancient. Hak stifles a laugh.

She's younger than he is. Still, it's literally his right to be a gremlin at this point, and so he does no such thing, and instead continues merrily licking the cone she's bought him like a slob.

It makes Tae-Yeon laugh, at least. Mundok laughs less, as he leans forward to wipe the face of his youngest grandson — the one who, at least, has the excuse of maybe not knowing better, considering he's ten and Hak is nearly an adult.

Oh well. If he's having fun, then there's no harm in it. And if it makes Yona pout, then it's all in good humor. It's nice to be able to pretend for a bit that he's not uncontrollably uncomfortable with everything, that he's not graciously guilty over touching her in a way he's always promised himself he'd never. When she has his hoodie pulled on over her, he can't see the marks of the beast, trailing along her clavicle.

Instead, she looks adorable, swaddled in all of that fabric. Yona is a third of his size, maybe, and has to roll the sleeves of his sweatshirt up in order to use her fingers. It hangs longer than her shorts, and a lesser man might run away with the thought, but Hak's feelings are in time out, so instead he thinks it strictly cute and nothing else.

Her legs really are twiggy. Sweatshirt down to her knees and chunky combat boots past her ankles.

"Thanks, Yona!" Tae-Yeon cheers, before digging in again.

"Yes," Mundok says, nibbling idly on his cone. "It was very thoughtful of you to treat us. Even if you wrestled my wallet out of my hands."

"I had to! It would defeat the purpose of me treating you if I let you pay."

"She's surprisingly strong when she wants to be," Hak says, licking his lips. He tries not to notice Yona's watchful eyes. "Like an animal."

"Hey!"

"Feral animal."

"Is that anyway to talk to your girlfriend?"

It gives him pause. Yona says it so fearlessly, so factually that it actually catches him off guard. It's a lie, but it's the same lie they've been telling for ages now, and it shouldn't make his heart lurch in his throat the way it does.

And here he was, thinking he'd finally smashed the damn thing and was done with it. Hak's too old for hope — he pops the ballooning feeling in his chest and leans back in his chair, ignoring the blossoming glee on his grandfather's face.

Right. Now he'll really never live it down. He might as well make the best of it. "Sorry, master."

Her cheeks nearly match the shade of her hair. "I— Don't— What!"

"What?" Hak raises a brow at her. "That pet name is no good either? I like it enough."

It's just a little bit of payback. If she's going to openly broadcast their little charade in front of his grandfather and younger brother, then she can deal with being outed as a brat. And, well, if Mundok's choked laughter is anything, maybe he's outed himself a bit, too, but whatever. Hak can deal with people thinking he lets Yona call the shots. It's not like it's a lie. That much, at least, is comforting. It's nice to not feel like he's lying.

But then that's not quite fair either. Hak supposes he hasn't been doing a lot of lying lately. He deserves no awards for his acting abilities — it's not hard for him to act like he's into Yona. It's like second nature, easy as breathing, and if it was more difficult to be in love with her, Hak thinks this whole thing would be better for everyone. At least that way, he wouldn't feel dirty, every time he held her hand or helped her down the front steps of her home.

What a mess. Ugh. And he'd spent so long this week trying to put it out of mind. So much for setting himself straight.

Yona nudges his foot. She's seated across from him, and he does not meet her halfway in this game of footsies. It's not what she means, he tells himself — she'd meant to kick him, or punish him for his mouth, but if he's being honest, Hak would rather she punish him by shoving him back against a wall and threatening him or something.

Thoughts like that will get him in trouble. Hak lets her kick him with kitten strength and struggles not to pretend like she's flirting with him.

Yona's mouth presses together. Ah. She's pouting again. Cute.

He's so fucked. Beyond fucked. She's not his to lose. She will literally be relieving him of his duty in two or three days. Who is he to be so greedy?

"Maybe I'm just not a very good boyfriend," Hak says then, voice low.

Yona huffs. "You're so mean."

"But you like that," he says, as if it's his place at all. As if it's even a little bit the truth. But this is what she wants him for, isn't it? A sharp-tongued bad boy.

"I'd like it better if you'd use your napkin."

He finally looks her in the eye. Makes a big show of licking his lips clean, then leans toward her, elbows flat on the table, and what the hell, he thinks — what's the point in sparing his feelings if there won't be much of him left anyway? He's already in too deep. He might as well commit and finish the job, for Yona's sake.

He hears gasping from a few tables over. Hears girls reaching into their bags for their cells. And of course they know who he is, who Yona is — Yona has always demanded attention. Yona's always been a celebrity in her own right, and here he is, adopted nobody in a sweaty uniform and cleats, eyeliner surely smudged around his eyes.

Take what you want, he thinks. Take all of me.

Tae-Yeon gasps. Yona blinks, surprised, but never once takes her eyes off of him. This time, he allows himself to watch her watch him, wearing his clothes, and yeah, maybe he is just a stupid meathead after all. Hak's too tired to chase his feelings in circles anymore, too tired to play roundup — he wants her. He's always wanted her. He knows she doesn't want him.

Yona's a good actress. Surprisingly good. Yona acts amused, as she leans forward, napkin in hand, and wipes his face clean. Gasps and squeaks when he lets his tongue drag across her finger tips, like she's playfully exasperated at his bad manners. Like she wants anything to do with his mouth.

It's not that Yoon was wrong. Yoon's been right the entire time. But what else can Hak do? He's been Yona's since the day they met. What she wants she gets. And if she wants it to be good, if she wants this to be over with so that they can do back to the way they were before, then he'll deliver. He'll watch her marry Soo-Won and stand at her wedding and be the damn godfather to their children, if she wants. He'll die with these feelings.

"You're such a twerp," Yona mumbles, then bites her lip, and god, what he wouldn't give to kiss her, just once.

He doesn't. Hak cracks his neck and grins crookedly. "Does my master have any complaints?"

"Yes," she says, then goes quiet. Waits until Mundok and Tae-Yeon begin talking amongst themselves to scoot her chair closer to his. "... I thought you were upset with me."

"I don't have any reason to be upset with you."

"You were avoiding me." She bunches up the napkin in her hand and then drops it onto the center of the table. "I missed you."

It's so simple and honest. He hates her for it. "I thought you wanted time with Soo-Won."

"He's busy." Of course he is. Why would he be attentive when Hak needs him most? "And… I don't know. I've been thinking a lot about what Yoon said."

"Yona."

She shrugs her shoulders. Tries to smile, but it's more watery now, and Hak hates her for that, too. Hates how quickly her tears can force his hand. More than that, he hates how she doesn't even have to try — and he knows she's not trying to weaponize those feelings against him. Yona wouldn't dream of it. She's enthusiastic and genuine in everything she does, and just once, Hak wishes he had her courage.

He's a coward after all.

"... What do I need for the party?"

It brightens her, just a bit. Yona bumps his ankle again with her foot, and Hak bumps her back this time. "Do you have a suit?"

"... Can I add chains to it."

"I'd be offended if you didn't."


End file.
